Inferno: Canto XXXI

The Giants around the Eighth Circle.—Nimrod.—Ephialtes.—Antaeus sets the Poets down in the Ninth Circle.

One and the same tongue first stung me, so that it tinged both my cheeks, and then supplied the medicine to me. Thus do I hear that the lance of Achilles and of his father was wont to be cause first of a sad and then of a good gift. We turned our back to the wretched valley, up along the bank that girds it round, crossing without any speech. Here it was less than night and less than day, so that my sight went little forward; but I heard a horn sounding so loud that it would have made every thunder faint, which directed my eyes, following its course counter to it, wholly to one place.

After the dolorous rout when Charlemagne lost the holy gest, Roland sounded not so terribly. Shortwhile did I carry my head turned thitherward, when it seemed to me I saw many high towers; whereon I, “Master, say, what city is this?” And he to me, “Because too far away thou peerest through the darkness, it happens that thou dost err in thy imagining. Thou shalt see well, if thou arrivest there, how much the sense at distance is deceived; therefore somewhat more spur thyself on.” Then tenderly he took me by the hand, and said, “Before we go further forward, in order that the fact may seem less strange to thee, know that they are not towers, but giants, and they are in the abyss round about the bank, from the navel downward, one and all of them.”

As when the mist is dissipating, the look little by little shapes out what the vapor that thickens the air conceals, so, as I pierced the gross and dark air as we drew nearer and nearer to the verge, error fled from me and fear grew upon me. For as above its circular enclosure Montereggione crowns itself with towers, so with half their body the horrible giants, whom Jove still threatens from heaven when he thunders, betowered the bank that surrounds the abyss.

And I discerned now the face of one, his shoulders, and his breast, and great part of his belly, and down along his sides both his arms. Nature, surely, when she left the art of such like creatures, did exceeding well in taking such executers from Mars; and if she repent not of elephants and of whales, he who looks subtly holds her more just and more discreet therefor; for where the faculty of the mind is added to evil will and to power, the human race can make no defense against it. His face seemed to me long and huge as the pine-cone of St. Peter at Rome, and in its proportion were his other bones; so that the bank, which was an apron from his middle downward, showed of him fully so much above, that to reach to his hair three Frieslanders would have made ill vaunt. For I saw of him thirty great palms down from the place where one buckles his cloak.

“Raphel mai amech zabi almi,” the fierce mouth, to which sweeter psalms were not befitting, began to cry. And my Leader toward him, “Foolish soul! Keep to thy horn, and with that vent thyself when anger or other passion touches thee; seek at thy neck, and thou wilt find the cord that holds it tied, O soul confused! and see it lying athwart thy great breast.” Then he said to me, “He himself accuses himself; this is Nimrod, because of whose evil thought the world uses not one language only. Let us leave him, and let us not speak in vain, for so is every language to him, as his to others, which to no one is known.”

Then turning to the left, we pursued our way, and at a crossbow’s shot we found the next, far more fierce and larger. Who the master was for binding him I cannot tell; but he had his right arm fastened behind, and the other in front, by a chain that held him entwined from the neck downward, so that upon his uncovered part it was wound as far as the fifth coil. “This proud one wished to make trial of his power against the supreme Jove,” said my Leader, “wherefore he has such reward; Ephialtes is his name, and he made his great endeavors when the giants made the Gods afraid; the arms which he plied he moves nevermore.”

And I to him, “If it may be, I should like my eyes to have experience of the huge Briareus.” Whereon he answered, “Thou shalt see Antaeus close at hand here, who speaks, and is unbound, and will set us at the bottom of all sin. Him whom thou wishest to see is much farther on, and is bound and fashioned like this one, save that he seems more ferocious in his look.”

Never was earthquake so mighty that it shook a tower as violently as Ephialtes was quick to shake himself. Then more than ever did I fear death; and there had been no need of more than the fright, if I had not seen his bonds. We then proceeded further forward, and came to Antaeus, who full five ells, besides his head, issued forth from the cavern. “O thou that, in the fateful valley which made Scipio the heir of glory when Hannibal and his followers turned their backs, didst bring of old a thousand lions for booty,—and it still seems credible that hadst thou been at the high war of thy brothers, the sons of the Earth would have conquered,—set us below, and disdain thou not to do so, where the cold locks up Cocytus. Make us not go to Tityus, nor to Typhon; this one can give of that which here is longed for; therefore stoop, and curl not thy snout. He yet can restore fame to thee in the world; for he is living, and still expects long life, if Grace doth not untimely call him to itself.” Thus said the Master; and he in haste stretched out those hands, whose strong grip Hercules once felt, and took my Leader. Virgil, when he felt himself taken up, said to me, “Come hither so that I take thee.” Then he made one bundle of himself and me. As beneath its leaning side, the Carisenda seems to look when a cloud is going over so that the tower hangs counter to it, thus seemed Antaeus to me that stood attent to see him bend; and it was a moment when I could have wished to go by another road. But lightly on the bottom that swallows Lucifer with Judas he set us down; nor, thus bent, did he there make stay, and like a mast in a ship he raised himself.