“O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee,” Began my Leader unto one of them, “And makest of them pincers now and then,
Tell me if any Latian is with those Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee To all eternity unto this work.”
“Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest, Both of us here,” one weeping made reply; “But who art thou, that questionest about us?”
And said the Guide: “One am I who descends Down with this living man from cliff to cliff, And I intend to show Hell unto him.”
Then broken was their mutual support, And trembling each one turned himself to me, With others who had heard him by rebound.
Wholly to me did the good Master gather, Saying: “Say unto them whate’er thou wishest.” And I began, since he would have it so:
“So may your memory not steal away In the first world from out the minds of men, But so may it survive ’neath many suns,
Say to me who ye are, and of what people; Let not your foul and loathsome punishment Make you afraid to show yourselves to me.”
“I of Arezzo was,” one made reply, “And Albert of Siena had me burned; But what I died for does not bring me here.
’Tis true I said to him, speaking in jest, That I could rise by flight into the air, And he who had conceit, but little wit,
Would have me show to him the art; and only Because no Daedalus I made him, made me Be burned by one who held him as his son.
But unto the last Bolgia of the ten, For alchemy, which in the world I practised, Minos, who cannot err, has me condemned.”
And to the Poet said I: “Now was ever So vain a people as the Sienese? Not for a certainty the French by far.”
Whereat the other leper, who had heard me, Replied unto my speech: “Taking out Stricca, Who knew the art of moderate expenses,
And Niccolo, who the luxurious use Of cloves discovered earliest of all Within that garden where such seed takes root;
And taking out the band, among whom squandered Caccia d’Ascian his vineyards and vast woods, And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered!
But, that thou know who thus doth second thee Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eye Tow’rds me, so that my face well answer thee,
And thou shalt see I am Capocchio’s shade, Who metals falsified by alchemy; Thou must remember, if I well descry thee,
How I a skilful ape of nature was.”
Inferno: Canto XXX
’Twas at the time when Juno was enraged, For Semele, against the Theban blood, As she already more than once had shown,
So reft of reason Athamas became, That, seeing his own wife with children twain Walking encumbered upon either hand,
He cried: “Spread out the nets, that I may take The lioness and her whelps upon the passage;” And then extended his unpitying claws,
Seizing the first, who had the name Learchus, And whirled him round, and dashed him on a rock; And she, with the other burthen, drowned herself;—
And at the time when fortune downward hurled The Trojan’s arrogance, that all things dared, So that the king was with his kingdom crushed,
Hecuba sad, disconsolate, and captive, When lifeless she beheld Polyxena, And of her Polydorus on the shore
Of ocean was the dolorous one aware, Out of her senses like a dog she barked, So much the anguish had her mind distorted;
But not of Thebes the furies nor the Trojan Were ever seen in any one so cruel In goading beasts, and much more human members,
As I beheld two shadows pale and naked, Who, biting, in the manner ran along That a boar does, when from the sty turned loose.
One to Capocchio came, and by the nape Seized with its teeth his neck, so that in dragging It made his belly grate the solid bottom.
And the Aretine, who trembling had remained, Said to me: “That mad sprite is Gianni Schicchi, And raving goes thus harrying other people.”
“O,” said I to him, “so may not the other Set teeth on thee, let it not weary thee To tell us who it is, ere it dart hence.”
And he to me: “That is the ancient ghost Of the nefarious Myrrha, who became Beyond all rightful love her father’s lover.
She came to sin with him after this manner, By counterfeiting of another’s form; As he who goeth yonder undertook,
That he might gain the lady of the herd, To counterfeit in himself Buoso Donati, Making a will and giving it due form.”
And after the two maniacs had passed On whom I held mine eye, I turned it back To look upon the other evil-born.
I saw one made in fashion of a lute, If he had only had the groin cut off Just at the point at which a man is forked.
The heavy dropsy, that so disproportions The limbs with humours, which it ill concocts, That the face corresponds not to the belly,
Compelled him so to hold his lips apart As does the hectic, who because of thirst One tow’rds the chin, the other upward turns.
“O ye, who without any torment are, And why I know not, in the world of woe,” He said to us, “behold, and be attentive
Unto the misery of Master Adam; I had while living much of what I wished, And now, alas! a drop of water crave.
The rivulets, that from the verdant hills Of Cassentin descend down into Arno, Making their channels to be cold and moist,
Ever before me stand, and not in vain; For far more doth their image dry me up Than the disease which strips my face of flesh.
The rigid justice that chastises me Draweth occasion from the place in which I sinned, to put the more my sighs in flight.
There is Romena, where I counterfeited The currency imprinted with the Baptist, For which I left my body burned above.
But if I here could see the tristful soul Of Guido, or Alessandro, or their brother, For Branda’s fount I would not give the sight.
One is within already, if the raving Shades that are going round about speak truth; But what avails it me, whose limbs are tied?
If I were only still so light, that in A hundred years I could advance one inch, I had already started on the way,
Seeking him out among this squalid folk, Although the circuit be eleven miles, And be not less than half a mile across.
For them am I in such a family; They did induce me into coining florins, Which had three carats of impurity.”
And I to him: “Who are the two poor wretches That smoke like unto a wet hand in winter, Lying there close upon thy right-hand confines?”
“I found them here,” replied he, “when I rained Into this chasm, and since they have not turned, Nor do I think they will for evermore.
One the false woman is who accused Joseph, The other the false Sinon, Greek of Troy; From acute fever they send forth such reek.”
And one of them, who felt himself annoyed At being, peradventure, named so darkly, Smote with the fist upon his hardened paunch.
It gave a sound, as if it were a drum; And Master Adam smote him in the face, With arm that did not seem to be less hard,
Saying to him: “Although be taken from me All motion, for my limbs that heavy are, I have an arm unfettered for such need.”
Whereat he answer made: “When thou didst go Unto the fire, thou hadst it not so ready: But hadst it so and more when thou wast coining.”
The dropsical: “Thou sayest true in that; But thou wast not so true a witness there, Where thou wast questioned of the truth at Troy.”
“If I spake false, thou falsifiedst the coin,” Said Sinon; “and for one fault I am here, And thou for more than any other demon.”
“Remember, perjurer, about the horse,” He made reply who had the swollen belly, “And rueful be it thee the whole world knows it.”
“Rueful to thee the thirst be wherewith cracks Thy tongue,” the Greek said, “and the putrid water That hedges so thy paunch before thine eyes.”
Then the false-coiner: “So is gaping wide Thy mouth for speaking evil, as ’tis wont; Because if I have thirst, and humour stuff me
Thou hast the burning and the head that aches, And to lick up the mirror of Narcissus Thou wouldst not want words many to invite thee.”
In listening to them was I wholly fixed, When said the Master to me: “Now just look, For little wants it that I quarrel with thee.”
When him I heard in anger speak to me, I turned me round towards him with such shame That still it eddies through my memory.
And as he is who dreams of his own harm, Who dreaming wishes it may be a dream, So that he craves what is, as if it were not;
Such I became, not having power to speak, For to excuse myself I wished, and still Excused myself, and did not think I did it.
“Less shame doth wash away a greater fault,” The Master said, “than this of thine has been; Therefore thyself disburden of all sadness,
And make account that I am aye beside thee, If e’er it come to pass that fortune bring thee Where there are people in a like dispute;
For a base wish it is to wish to hear it.”