Inferno: Canto XXVI

Rejoice, O Florence, since so great thy fame,
That over sea and land thy wings are spread.
And through the depths of Hell resounds thy name.

Five such I found among the scoundrel dead.
Thy citizens, whence shame my soul doth fill,
Nor do they with much honour crown thy head;

But if at morning dawn come true dreams still.
It will be thine in no long time to bear
What Prato and the rest desire of ill.

Should it come now, 'twere late by many a year:
Since come it must, I would it now were come.
Since more 'twill grieve me as life's end draws near.

So upward by the self-same stairs we clomb
The rocks had made for our descent before,
In front my Guide, and I behind did roam;

And as our lonely way we travelled o'er
Among the rock's sharp crags and jutting stones.
Feet without hands had been but scanty store.

Then grieved I much, and still my spirit groans,
When I recall what there my eyes beheld,
And my free mind a check unwonted owns.

That it run not, by Virtue unimpelled;
So that if some good star, or aught more high,
Good gifts have given, they be not now withheld.

As when the peasant on the hill doth lie,
(What time his face from us is least concealed
Who to the world gives light from out the sky.

And swarms of flies to gnats their places yield).
And down the vale sees many a glow-worm's rays.
There where he plucks his grapes or ploughs his field;

So many a flame lit up in glowing blaze
In the eighth Bolgia there I soon did see,
As soon as I upon its depth did gaze;

And like to him the bears avenged, when he
Elijah's chariot watched till it was gone,
What time the steeds erect to heaven did flee —

For with his eyes he failed to track them on.
Or see aught else but one encircling flame.
That like a cloud its way right upward won —

So in the pit's deep gorge each went and came,
For not one did the deed of theft display.
Yet each enwrapped a sinner and his shame.

Erect upon the bridge I then did stay,
So that unless my hands a rock had held,
Without being pushed, my feet had given way.

And when my Guide me thus attent beheld,
Thus spake he: ''In these fires the spirits dwell.
Each to be wrapt by that which burns compelled."

"Dear Master mine," I said, " what thou dost tell
Makes me more certain, but before I deemed
That so it was, and sought to ask as well

Whom doth that fire hold, where apart have streamed
The flames at top, as though from out the pyre
That o'er Eteocles and his brother gleamed,''

He answered me, " There tortured in that fire
Ulysses is and Diomed, and so
They run to vengeance as they ran to ire;

And there, within the flame, they wail in woe
The ambush of that horse that made the gate,
Through which the noble seed of Rome did flow;

Those arts they mourn which for Achilles' fate
Still wet with tears Deidamia's cheek.
And for Palladium wail disconsolate."

"If they within those flames have power to speak,"
I said, " O Master, once, yea, twice I pray,
And that my prayer may count for thousand seek.

Thou wilt not to my waiting here say Nay,
Until that horned flame hard by us come;
Thou see'st my yearnings make me lean that way."

And he: "Full many praises well become
Thy prayer, and I receive it graciously;
But take good heed that now thy lips be dumb;

Leave speech to me: I have in my mind's eye
What thou dost wish, for they perchance might scorn.
As they were Greeks, with thy words to comply."

When that the flame was thither onward borne
Where to my Leader seemed fit time and place,
I heard these words his flowing speech adorn:

O ye whom, twain, one bright fire doth embrace.
If while I lived I aught from you could claim,
Or if that claim filled great or little space.

When in the world I wrote my verse of fame,
I pray you move not, but let one relate,
Where he, storm-driven, to his death-hour came.

Of th' ancient flame the horn of highest state,
Murmuring, began to waver to and fro.
Like that which winds tempestuous agitate;

And as its point now here, now there did go,
As though it were the tongue with which it spake,
It utterance gave to voice which thus did flow:

"When I from Circe parted, who did make
Me hide a year and more Gaeta near.
Ere from neas it that name did take.

Neither my son's sweet presence, nor my fear
And love for my old father, nor the love
Which should have given Penelope good cheer,

Could check the strong desire I had to rove.
And so become experienced in mankind,
With human vice and virtue hand in glove.

On the wide sea I gave me to the wind,
With one sole bark, and with that company,
The few by whom I ne'er was left behind.

Both shores as far as Spain then met mine eye,
Far as Morocco and Sardinia's isle,
And others that on all sides sea-girt lie.

I and my friends were old and spent with toil.
When to that narrow strait we came at last
Where Hercules set landmarks on the soil.

That they might never more by man be passed;
On the right hand I left Seviglia's shore,
And on the left by Ceuta had sailed past.

'O brothers,' then I said, ' who evermore
Through thousand toils have journeyed to the West,
To this short remnant of your life of yore.

Still with the sense of watchful insight blest,
Deny ye not the great experiment
Of worlds unpeopled where the sunsets rest;

Let your thoughts be on your high lineage bent:
Ye were not born to live as lives the brute,
But to seek good and wisdom's high intent.'

I made my friends so eager and acute
For travel, with that little speech of mine,
That no delay thenceforth their mood would suit;

And, our stern turned to where the mornings shine.
We made our oars as wings for that mad flight,
Still gaining on the left horizon line:

And all the stars I saw that lit the night
Of the other pole, our own being sunk so low,
It rose not from its ocean bed to sight.

Five times was kindled, five times quenched the glow
By which the moon's inferior face was lit.
Since into that deep pass 'twas ours to go.

When through the distance dim and dark did flit
The vision of a mount that seemed so high
I ne'er had looked on any like to it.

Joyous were we, but soon there came a cry,
For from that new land rose a whirlwind blast,
And smote the good ship's prow full terribly.

Three times amidst the water's whirl it passed.
Then on the fourth the stern aloft did rise,
The prow sank as Another willed; at last

The sea's wild waters closed upon our eyes."