Inferno:
Canto XX
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Of a new
pain behoves me to make verses
And give material to the twentieth
Canto
Of the first
song, which is of the submerged.
I was already thoroughly
disposed
To peer down into the uncovered depth,
Which bathed itself with tears of
agony;
And people saw I through the circular valley,
Silent and
weeping, coming at the pace
Which in this
world the
Litanies assume.
As lower down my sight descended on them,
Wondrously each one seemed to be
distorted
From
chin to the beginning of the
chest;
For tow'rds the reins the
countenance was turned,
And backward it behoved them to advance,
As to look forward had been taken from them.
Perchance indeed by
violence of
palsy
Some one has been thus wholly turned
awry;
But I ne'er saw it, nor believe it can be.
As
God may let thee,
Reader, gather
fruit
From this thy reading, think now for thyself
How I could ever keep my face unmoistened,
When our own image near me I beheld
Distorted so, the
weeping of the eyes
Along the
fissure bathed the
hinder parts.
Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
Of the hard crag, so that my
Escort said
To me: "Art thou, too, of the other fools?
Here pity lives when it is wholly dead;
Who is a greater reprobate than he
Who feels compassion at the doom
divine?
Lift up, lift up thy head, and see for whom
Opened the
earth before the
Thebans' eyes;
Wherefore they all cried: '
Whither rushest thou,
Amphiaraus? Why dost leave the
war?'
And downward ceased he not to fall amain
As far as
Minos, who lays hold on all.
See, he has made a
bosom of his shoulders!
Because he wished to see too far before him
Behind he looks, and backward goes his way:
Behold
Tiresias, who his
semblance changed,
When from a
male a
female he became,
His members being all of them
transformed;
And afterwards was forced to strike once more
The two entangled
serpents with his rod,
Ere he could have again his manly plumes.
That Aruns is, who backs the other's belly,
Who in the hills of
Luni, there where grubs
The
Carrarese who houses underneath,
Among the marbles
white a cavern had
For his abode; whence to behold the stars
And sea, the view was not cut off from him.
And she there, who is covering up her
breasts,
Which thou beholdest not, with loosened tresses,
And on that side has all the hairy skin,
Was
Manto, who made quest through many lands,
Afterwards tarried there where I was born;
Whereof I would thou list to me a little.
After her
father had from life departed,
And the city of
Bacchus had become enslaved,
She a long
season wandered through the world.
Above in beauteous
Italy lies a lake
At the
Alp's
foot that shuts in
Germany
Over
Tyrol, and has the name
enaco
By a thousand springs, I think, and more, is bathed,
'Twixt
Garda and
Val Camonica,
Pennino,
With water that grows stagnant in that lake.
Midway a place is where the
Trentine Pastor,
And he of
Brescia, and the
Veronese
Might give his blessing, if he passed that way.
Sitteth
Peschiera, fortress
fair and strong,
To front the
Brescians and the
Bergamasks,
Where round about the bank descendeth lowest.
There of necessity must fall whatever
In bosom of
Benaco cannot stay,
And grows a river down through verdant pastures.
Soon as the water doth begin to run,
No more
Benaco is it called, but
Mincio,
Far as
Governo, where it falls in
Po.
Not far it runs before it finds a plain
In which it spreads itself, and makes it
marshy,
And oft 'tis wont in summer to be
sickly.
Passing that way the
virgin pitiless
Land in the middle of the fen descried,
Untilled and naked of
inhabitants;
There to escape all human
intercourse,
She with her servants stayed, her arts to practise
And lived, and left her empty
body there.
The men, thereafter, who were scattered round,
Collected in that place, which was made strong
By the
lagoon it had on every side;
They built their city over those dead bones,
And, after her who first the place selected,
Mantua named it, without other omen.
Its people once within more crowded were,
Ere the stupidity of
Casalodi
From
Pinamonte had received deceit.
Therefore I caution thee, if e'er thou hearest
Originate my city otherwise,
No falsehood may the verity
defraud."
And I: "My
Master, thy
discourses are
To me so certain, and so take my faith,
That unto me the rest would be spent coals.
But tell me of the people who are passing,
If any one
note-worthy thou beholdest,
For only unto that my mind reverts."
Then said he to me: "He who from the cheek
Thrusts out his beard upon his swarthy shoulders
Was, at the time when
Greece was
void of males,
So that there scarce remained one in the
cradle,
An
augur, and with
Calchas gave the moment,
In
Aulis, when to sever the first cable.
Eryphylus his name was, and so
sings
My
lofty Tragedy in some part or other;
That knowest thou well, who knowest the whole of it.
The next, who is so slender in the flanks,
Was
Michael Scott, who of a verity
Of magical illusions knew the game.
Behold
Guido Bonatti, behold
Asdente,
Who now unto his
leather and his thread
Would fain have stuck, but he too late repents.
Behold the wretched ones, who left the
needle,
The spool and rock, and made them fortune-tellers;
They wrought their magic spells with herb and image.
But come now, for already holds the confines
Of both the
hemispheres, and under
Seville
Touches the ocean-wave,
Cain and the thorns,
And yesternight the
moon was round already;
Thou shouldst remember well it did not harm thee
From time to time within the forest deep."
Thus spake he to me, and we walked the while.
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