that I could not have made it out
15
even had I turned in its direction.
Here we met a troop of souls
coming up along the bank, and each one
18
gazed at us as men at dusk will sometimes do,
eyeing one another under the new moon.
They peered at us with knitted brows
21
like an old tailor at his needle’s eye.
Thus scrutinized by such a company,
I was known to one of them who caught me →
24
by the hem and then cried out, ‘What a wonder!’
And while he held his arm outstretched to me,
I fixed my eyes on his scorched face
27
until beneath the charred disfigurement
I could discern the features that I knew →
and, lowering my hand toward his face,
30
asked: ‘Are You here, Ser Brunetto?’
And he: ‘O my son, let it not displease you
if Brunetto Latini for a while turns back
33
with you and lets the troop go on.’
I said to him: ‘With all my heart, I pray You,
and if You would have me sit with You, I will,
36
if he who leads me through allows.’
‘O son,’ he said, ‘whoever of this flock stops
even for an instant has to lie a hundred years,
39
unable to fend off the fire when it strikes.
‘Therefore, go on. I shall follow at your hem
and later will rejoin my band,
42
who go lamenting their eternal pain.’
I did not dare to leave the higher path
to walk the lower with him, but I kept
45
my head bowed, like one who walks in reverence.
He began: ‘What chance or fate is it
that brings you here before your final hour,
48
and who is this that shows the way?’ →
‘In the sunlit life above,’ I answered,
‘in a valley there, I lost my way →
51
before I reached the zenith of my days.
‘Only yesterday morning did I leave it,
but had turned back when he appeared,
54
and now along this road he leads me home.’ →
And he to me: ‘By following your star →
you cannot fail to reach a glorious port,
57
if I saw clearly in the happy life.
‘Had I not died too soon, →
seeing that Heaven so favors you,
60
I would have lent you comfort in your work.
‘But that malignant, thankless rabble →
that came down from Fiesole long ago
63
and still smacks of the mountain and the rock
‘rightly shall become, because of your good deeds,
your enemy: among the bitter sorbs
66
it is not fit the sweet fig come to fruit.
‘The world has long believed them to be blind,
a people greedy, envious and proud.
69
Be sure you stay untainted by their ways.
‘Your destiny reserves for you such honor
both parties shall be hungry to devour you,
72
but the grass shall be far from the goat.
‘Let the Fiesolan beasts make forage
of themselves but spare the plant,
75
if on their dung-heap any still springs up,
‘the plant in which lives on the holy seed
of those few Romans who remained
78
when it became the home of so much malice.’
‘If all my prayers were answered,’
I said to him, ‘You would not yet
81
be banished from mankind.
‘For I remember well and now lament
the cherished, kind, paternal image of You →
84
when, there in the world, from time to time,
‘You taught me how man makes himself immortal.
And how much gratitude I owe for that
87
my tongue, while I still live, must give report.
‘What You tell of my future I record →
and keep for glossing, along with other texts,
90
by a lady of discernment, should I reach her.
‘This much I would have You know: →
as long as conscience does not chide,
93
I am prepared for Fortune as she wills.
‘Such prophecy is not unknown to me.
Let Fortune spin her wheel just as she pleases, →
96
and let the loutish peasant ply his hoe.’
At that I saw the right side of my master’s face
turned back in my direction. And he said:
99
‘He listens well who takes in what he hears.’ →
Nonetheless, I go on speaking
with ser Brunetto, asking who, of his companions,
102
are most eminent, most worthy to be known.
And he: “Some of them it is good to know.
Others it is better not to mention,
105
for the time would be too short for so much talk.
‘In sum, note that all of them were clerics →
or great and famous scholars, all befouled
108
in the world above by a single sin.
‘Priscian goes with that wretched crowd,
and Francesco d’Accorso too. And, had you had
111
a hankering for such filth, you might have seen
‘the one transferred by the Servant of Servants
from the Arno to the Bacchiglione,
114
where he left his sin-stretched sinews.
‘I would say more, but I cannot stay,
cannot continue talking, for over there I see
117
new smoke rising from the sand.
‘People are coming with whom I must not be. →
Let my Treasure, in which I still live on, →
120
be in your mind—I ask for nothing more.’
After he turned back he seemed like one →
who races for the green cloth on the plain
beyond Verona. And he looked more the winner
124
than the one who trails the field.
OUTLINE: INFERNO XVI
1–3
the sound of the waterfall at the border ahead: bees
4–9
three shades see that Dante is Florentine and stop him
10–12
their wounds: to remember them pains the poet even now
13–18
Virgil’s insistence that these are worthy of courtesy
19–21
the three make a wheel of themselves
22–27
simile: wrestlers
28–45
one of them, admitting his sins, asks who Dante is; he identifies Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, and himself (Iacopo Rusticucci)
46–51
Dante’s reaction is to want to embrace them
52–63
Dante’s affection for them; he is on his way to heaven
64–72
Rusticucci: do valor and courtesy still abide in Florence, or is Guglielmo Borsiere right?
73–78
Dante: he is right; their stunned reaction
79–85
the three: Dante a truth-teller; they ask him to speak of them once he returns to earth
86–90
they withdraw; Dante
and Virgil continue on
91–93
the roaring waterfall
94–105
simile: the Acquacheta
106–114
Dante’s cord and Virgil’s challenge
115–123
Dante’s thought and Virgil’s “reading” of his mind
124–136
Dante’s oath to his readers (third address in the poem) and the figure (Geryon) rising from the depths
INFERNO XVI
I had arrived where we could hear the distant roar →
of water falling to the lower circle,
3
like the rumbling hum of bees around a hive,
when three shades at a run
broke from a passing crowd
6
under that rain of bitter torment.
Together they came toward us, each one calling:
‘Stop, you, who by your garb appear to be
9
a man from our degenerate city.’
Oh, what sores I noticed on their limbs,
both old and new ones, branded by the flames!
12
It pains me still, when I remember them.
My teacher was attentive to their cries,
then turned his face to me and said:
15
‘Now wait: to these one must show courtesy. →
‘And were it not for the fire that the nature
of this place draws down, I would say
18
that haste suits you far more than it does them.’
When we stopped, they took up again →
their old refrain but, once they reached us,
21
all three had joined into a single wheel.
As combatants, oiled and naked, are wont to do,
watching for their hold and their advantage,
24
before the exchange of thrusts and blows,
wheeling, each fixed his eyes on me,
so that their feet moved forward
27
while their necks were straining back.
One began: ‘If the squalor of this shifting sand →
and our blackened, hairless faces
30
put us and our petitions in contempt,
‘let our fame prevail on you
to tell us who you are, who fearless
33
move on living feet through Hell.
‘He in whose steps you see me tread,
though he go naked, peeled hairless by the fire,
36
was of a higher rank than you imagine.
‘He was grandson of the good Gualdrada.
Guido Guerra was his name. In his life
39
he did much with good sense, much with the sword.
‘This other, squinching sand behind me,
is Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, whose voice
42
deserved a better welcome in the world.
‘And I, who am put to torment with them,
was Jacopo Rusticucci. It was my bestial wife,
45
more than all else, who brought me to this pass.’
Had I been sheltered from the fire →
I would have thrown myself among them,
48
and I believe my teacher would have let me.
But because I would have burned and baked,
fright overcame the good intentions
51
that made me hunger to embrace them.
Then I began: ‘Not contempt, but sadness,
fixed your condition in my heart so deep—
54
it will be long before it leaves me—
‘the moment that my master’s words
made me consider that such worthy men
57
as you were coming near.
‘I am of your city. How many times →
I’ve heard your deeds, your honored names resound!
60
And I, too, spoke your names with affection.
‘I leave bitterness behind for the sweet fruits
promised by my truthful leader.
63
But first I must go down into the very core.’
‘That your spirit long may guide →
your limbs,’ he now added,
66
‘and your renown shine after you,
‘tell us if valor and courtesy still live
there in our city, as once they used to do,
69
or have they utterly forsaken her?
‘Guglielmo Borsiere, grieving with us here
so short a time, goes yonder with our company
72
and makes us worry with his words.’
‘The new crowd with their sudden profits →
have begot in you, Florence, such excess
75
and arrogance that you already weep.’
This, my face uplifted, I cried out. And the three, →
taking it for answer, looked at one another
78
as men do when they face the truth.
‘If at other times it costs so little
for you to give clear answers,’ they replied in turn,
81
‘happy are you to speak so freely.
‘Therefore, so may you escape from these dark regions →
to see again the beauty of the stars,
84
when you shall rejoice in saying “I was there,”
‘see that you speak of us to others.’
Then they broke their circle and as they fled
87
‘Amen’ could not have been said as quickly →
as they vanished. And then my master
90
thought it time to leave.
I followed him, and we had not gone far →
before the roar of water was so close
93
we hardly could have heard each other speak.
As the river that is the first to hold →
its course from Monte Viso eastward
96
on the left slope of the Apennines,
and up there is called the Acquacheta,
before it pours into its lower bed
99
and, having lost that name at Forlì,
reverberates above San Benedetto
dell’Alpe, falling in one cataract
102
where there might well have been a thousand,
so, down from a precipitous bank, the flood
of that dark water coming down resounded
105
in our ears and almost stunned us.
I had a cord around my waist →
with which I once had meant to take
108
the leopard with the painted pelt.
After I had undone it, →
as my leader had commanded,
111
I gave it to him coiled and knotted.
Then, swinging round on his right side,
he flung it out some distance from the edge,
114
down into the depth of that abyss.
‘Surely,’ I said to myself, ‘something new →
and strange will answer this strange signal
117
the master follows with his eye.’
Ah, how cautious we should be with those
who do not see our actions only,
120
but with their wisdom peer into our thoughts!
He said to me: ‘Soon what I expect
and your mind only dreams of will appear.
123
Soon it shall be right before your eyes.’
To a truth that bears the face of falsehood →
a man should seal his lips if he is able,
126
for it might shame him, t
hrough no fault of his,
but here I can’t be silent. And by the strains
of this Comedy—so may they soon succeed
129
in finding favor—I swear to you, reader,
that I saw come swimming up
through that dense and murky air a shape
132
to cause amazement in the stoutest heart,
a shape most like a man’s who, having plunged →
to loose the anchor caught fast in a reef
or something other hidden in the sea, now rises,
136
reaching upward and drawing in his feet.
OUTLINE: INFERNO XVII
1–4
Virgil indicates the presence of Geryon
5–9
Virgil’s invitation and Geryon’s “docking”
10–18
description of Geryon
19–27
similes: Geryon compared to boat, beaver, scorpion
28–36
at the Circle’s rim the travelers find sinners
37–42
Virgil will parley while Dante visits these
43–45
Dante moves toward them without his guide
46–48
the weeping eyes and busy hands of the usurers
49–51
simile: dogs scratching themselves in summertime
52–57
usurers not recognizable except from their pouches
58–78
five are identified, three by their insignia
79–84
Virgil, mounted on Geryon, reassures Dante
85–88
simile: man with quartan fever at the sight of shade
89–90
Dante’s fear displaced by his own resultant shame
91–99
Dante mounts Geryon; Virgil’s ministrations
100–105
similes: boat and eel (for Geryon’s departure)