And they, inflamed, did so inflame Augustus →
69
that welcome honors turned to dismal woe.
‘My mind, in scornful temper, →
hoping by dying to escape from scorn,
72
made me, though just, against myself unjust.
‘By this tree’s new-sprung roots I give my oath: →
not once did I break faith
75
with my true lord, a man so worthy of honor.
‘If one of you goes back into the world,
let him restore my reputation, which, helpless,
78
lies beneath the blow that envy dealt it.’
The poet waited, then he said to me:
‘Since he is silent now do not waste time
81
but speak if you would ask him more.’
And I replied: ‘Please question him →
about the things you think I need to know.
84
For I cannot, such pity fills my heart.’
Thus he began again: ‘So that this man may,
with ready will, do as your words entreat,
87
may it please you, imprisoned spirit,
‘to tell us further how the souls are bound
inside such gnarled wood, and tell us, if you can,
90
if from such limbs one ever is set free.’
Then the tree forced out harsh breath, and soon
that wind was turned into a voice:
93
‘My answer shall be brief.
‘When the ferocious soul deserts the body
after it has wrenched up its own roots,
96
Minos condemns it to the seventh gulch.
‘It falls into the forest, in a spot not chosen,
but flung by fortune, helter-skelter,
99
it fastens like a seed.
‘It spreads into a shoot, then a wild thicket.
The Harpies, feeding on its leaves,
102
give pain and to that pain a mouth.
‘We will come to claim our cast-off bodies
like the others. But it would not be just if we again
105
put on the flesh we robbed from our own souls.
‘Here shall we drag it, and in this dismal wood
our bodies will be hung, each one
108
upon the thorn-bush of its painful shade.’
Our attention was still fixed upon the tree, →
thinking it had more to tell us,
111
when we were startled by a noise,
as a man, when he hears
the dogs, and branches snapping,
114
knows the boar and hunters near.
Now, from the left, two souls came running,
naked and torn, and so intent on flight
117
they broke straight through the tangled thicket.
The one in front cried: ‘Come, come quickly, death!’
And the other, who thought his own pace slow:
120
‘Lano, your legs were not so nimble
‘at the tournament near the Toppo.’
Then, almost out of breath, he pressed himself
123
into a single tangle with a bush.
Behind them now the woods were thick
with bitches, black and ravenous and swift
126
as hounds loosed from the leash.
On him who had hidden in the tangle
they set their teeth, tore him to pieces,
129
and carried off those miserable limbs.
And then my leader took me by the hand. →
He led me to the bush,
132
which wept in vain lament from bleeding wounds.
‘O Jacopo da Sant’ Andrea,’ it said,
‘what use was it to make a screen of me?
135
Why must I suffer for your guilty life?’
When the master stopped beside it, he said:
‘Who were you, that through so many wounds
138
pour out with blood your doleful words?’
And he to us: ‘O souls who have arrived →
to see the shameless carnage
141
that has torn from me my leaves,
‘gather them here at the foot of this wretched bush.
I was of the city that traded patrons—
144
Mars for John the Baptist. On that account
‘Mars with his craft will make her grieve forever.
And were it not that at the crossing of the Arno
147
some vestige of him still remains,
‘those citizens who afterwards rebuilt it
upon the ashes that Attila left behind
would have done their work in vain.
151
I made my house into my gallows.’
OUTLINE: INFERNO XIV
1–3
retrospect: the Florentine suicide
4–6
the border separating the second and third rings
7–15
the hellscape of violence against God: barren sand
16–18
apostrophe: God’s just vengeance
19–27
three classes of sins punished in the third ring
28–30
the hellscape: flakes of fire
31–39
simile: flames from sky on Alexander’s army in India
40–42
the hands of the sinners in their eternal “dance”
43–48
Dante’s impertinent question to Virgil
49–60
Capaneus’s monologue
61–66
Virgil’s rebuke of Capaneus
67–72
Virgil’s “commentary” to Dante
73–75
marker of separation between two halves of canto
76–78
the river of blood
79–81
simile: the river Bulicame
82–84
the stone margins of the river will afford them passage
85–90
Virgil stresses the importance of this river
91–93
Dante’s heightened curiosity
94–111
Virgil on the Old Man of Crete:
94–102
Mount Ida, paradisal past and deserted present
103–111
the old man within the mountain
112–120
tears of the veglio form the four rivers of hell
121–129
the stream: Dante’s question and Virgil’s answer
130–138
Phlegethon and Lethe: Dante’s questions answered
139–142
coda: Virgil’s advice that Dante stick to the path
INFERNO XIV
Urged by the love I bore my place of birth, →
I gathered up the scattered leaves and gave them back
3
to him, who had by this time spent his breath.
Then we came to the boundary that divides →
the second circling from the third.
6
And here the dreadful work of justice is revealed.
To tell how strange the new place was, →
I say we reached a barren plain
9
that lets no plant set root into its soil.
The gloomy forest rings it like a garland
and is in turn encircled by the moat.
12
Here, at the very edge, we stayed our steps
at an expanse of deep and arid sand,
much like the sand pressed long ago →
15
beneath the feet of Cato.
O vengeance of God, how much
should you be feared by all who read
18
what now I saw revealed before my eyes!
I saw many a herd of naked souls, →
all crying out in equal misery,
21
though each seemed subject to a different law:
some lay face up upon the ground,
some sat, their bodies hunched,
24
and others roamed about in constant motion.
Most numerous were those who roamed about,
those lying there in torment fewer,
27
though theirs the tongues crying out the most.
Above the stretching sand, in slow descent, →
broad flakes of fire showered down
30
as snow falls in the hills on windless days. →
If Alexander, on India’s torrid plains, →
seeing undiminished flakes of fire fall
33
upon the ground and on his troops,
ordered his men to trample down the soil
so that the flaming shower was put out
36
before the fire caught and spread,
here untrammeled the eternal flames
came down, and the sand took fire
39
like tinder under flint, doubling the torment.
Ever without repose was the rude dance →
of wretched hands, now here, now there,
42
slapping at each new scorching cinder.
I began: ‘Master, you who overcome all things— →
all but the obstinate fiends who sallied forth
45
against us at the threshold of the gate,
‘who is that hero who seems to scorn the fire →
and lies there grim and scowling
48
so that the rain seems not to torture him?’
And he himself, who had discerned →
that I had asked my guide about him,
51
cried: ‘What I was alive, I am in death. →
‘Let Jove wear out his blacksmith
from whom in rage he seized the shining bolt
54
he struck me with on that my final day.
‘And though he weary all the others, one by one,
at their black forge in Mongibello,
57
shouting “Help, good Vulcan, help!”
‘as once he did on the battlefield of Phlegra,
and though he hurl his shafts at me with all his might,
60
he still would have no joy in his revenge.’
Then my leader spoke with a vehemence →
I had not heard him use before: ‘O, Capaneus,
63
because your pride remains unquenched
‘you suffer greater punishment.
In your own anger lies your agony,
66
a fitting torment for your rage.’
Then, with a calmer look, he said to me:
‘He was among the seven kings who once laid siege
69
to Thebes and held—and he still seems to hold— →
‘God in disdain and to esteem Him lightly.
But his own spiteful ranting, as I made clear,
72
most fittingly adorns his breast.
‘Now come along behind me, and be sure
you do not set your feet upon the burning sand
75
but keep your steps close to the forest’s edge.’
In silence we went on until we came →
to where a little stream spurts from the wood.
78
The redness of it makes me shudder still.
As from the Bulicame flows out a rivulet
the sinful women then divide among them,
81
so this ran down across the sand.
Its bed and both its banks were made of stone,
as was the boundary on either side:
84
I saw our passage lay that way.
‘In all else I have shown you
since we entered through the gate
87
whose threshold is denied to none,
‘your eyes have yet seen nothing of such note
as is this stream before us:
90
its vapor quenches every flame above it.’
These were my leader’s words. Hearing them,
I asked him to supply the food
93
for which he had provoked the appetite.
‘In the middle of the sea there lies a land,’ → →
he said, ‘a wasteland known as Crete.
96
Under its king the world was innocent.
‘A mountain rises there, once glad
with leaves and streams, called Ida.
99
Now it is barren like a thing outworn.
‘Once Rhea chose it as the trusted cradle
for her child, and there, the better to conceal him
102
when he cried, she had her people raise an uproar.
‘Within the mountain stands a huge old man. →
He keeps his back turned on Damietta,
105
gazing on Rome as in his mirror.
his breast and arms of purest silver,
108
then to the fork he’s made of brass,
‘and from there down he is all iron,
but for his right foot of baked clay,
111
and he rests more on this than on the other.
‘Every part except the gold is rent →
by a crack that drips with tears, which, running down,
114
collect to force a passage through that cavern,
‘taking their course from rock to rock into this depth, →
where they form Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon,
117
then, going down this narrow channel,
‘down to where there is no more descent,
they form Cocytus: what kind of pond that is
120
you shall see in time—here I say no more.’
Then I asked: ‘If that stream flows
down from our world, why do we see it
123
only at this boundary?’
And he answered: ‘You know this place is round,
and though you have come far,
126
descending toward the bottom on the left,
‘you have not come full circle.
Should some new thing confront us,
129
it need not bring such wonder to your face.’
And I again: ‘Master, where are Phlegethon and Lethe? →
About the one you’re silent, and you say the other
132
is made into a river by this rain.’
‘In all your questions you do please me,’
he replied, ‘but the red and seething water
135
might well have answered one of those you ask.
‘Lethe you shall see: not in this abyss
but where the spirits go to cleanse themselves
138
once their repented guilt has been removed.’
And then: ‘Now it is time to leave this forest. →
See you stay close behind me.
The borders, which are not on fire, form a path
142
and over both of them all flames are quenched.’
OUTLINE: INFERNO XV
1–3
Dante and Virgil continue along the stream
4–12
double simile: earthworks in Flanders and Padua
13–21
the troop of souls peering at Dante and Virgil
22–30
Dante and Brunetto Latini recognize one another
31–45
they exchange courtesies and proceed together
46–48
Brunetto’s questions (what brings you? who leads you?)
49–54
Dante’s responses (my lost state; this guide)
55–69
Brunetto: Dante’s promising career and political adversaries
70–78
Brunetto’s promise of Dante’s escape and warning to those adversaries
79–87
Dante declares his debt to Brunetto
88–90
this is the second such prophecy he has heard
91–96
Dante says he is firm against Fortune’s turnings
97–99
Virgil advises Dante to listen closely
100–102
Dante continues, asking Brunetto of his companions
103–114
Brunetto: famous men of letters (Priscian, Francesco d’Accorso, Andrea de’ Mozzi)
115–118
Brunetto must leave: he must not be with those who come
119–120
Brunetto, departing, commends his Tesoro to Dante
121–124
simile: Brunetto as winner in the race at Verona
INFERNO XV
Now one of the stony borders bears us on →
and vapors from the stream arise as mist
3
protecting banks and water from the flames.
As the Flemings between Wissant and Bruges, →
fearing the tide that rushes in upon them,
6
erect a bulwark to repel the sea,
and as the Paduans build dikes along the Brenta,
to protect their towns and castles
9
before the heat brings floods to Carentana—
in just that way these banks were formed,