Inferno: Canto XIII

Nessus had not yet reached the other side, when we moved into a wood, which by no path was marked.

Not green the foliage, but of colour dusky; not smooth the branches, but gnarled and warped;

apples none were there, but withered sticks with poison.

No holts so rough or dense have those wild beasts, that hate the cultivated tracts, between Cecina and Corneto.

Here the unseemly Harpies make their nest[s], who chased the Trojans from the Strophades with dismal note of future woe.

Wide wings they have, and necks and faces human, feet with claws, and their large belly feathered; they make rueful cries on the strange trees.

The kind Master began to say to me: “Before thou goest farther, know that thou art in the second round; and shalt be, until

thou comest to the horrid sand. Therefore look well, and thou shalt see things which would take away belief from my speech.”

Already I heard wailings uttered on every side, and saw no one to make them: wherefore I, all bewildered, stood still;

I think he thought that I was thinking so many voices came, amongst those stumps, from people who hid themselves on our account.

Therefore the Master said: “If thou breakest off any little shoot from one of these plants, the thoughts, which thou hast, will all become defective.”

Then I stretched my hand a little forward, and plucked a branchlet from a great thorn; and the trunk of it cried, “Why dost thou rend me?”

And when it had grown dark with blood, it again began to cry: “Why dost thou tear me? hast thou no breath of pity?

Men we were, and now are turned to trees: truly thy hand should be more merciful, had we been souls of serpents.”

As a green brand, that is burning at one end, at the other drops, and hisses with the wind which is escaping:

so from that broken splint, words and blood came forth together: whereat I let fall the top, and stood like one who is afraid.

“If he, O wounded Spirit!” my Sage replied, “could have believed before, what he has seen only in my verse,

he would not have stretched forth his hand against thee; but the incredibility of the thing made me prompt him to do what grieves myself.

But tell him who thou wast; so that, to make thee some amends, he may refresh thy fame up in the world, to which he is permitted to return.”

And the trunk: “Thou so allurest me with thy sweet words, that I cannot keep silent; and let it not seem burdensome to you, if I enlarge a little in discourse.

I am he, who held both keys of Frederick’s heart, and turned them, locking and unlocking so softly,

that from his secrets I excluded almost every other man; so great fidelity I bore to the glorious office, that I lost thereby both sleep and life.

The harlot, that never from Cæsar’s dwelling turned her adulterous eyes, common bane, and vice of courts,

inflamed all minds against me; and these, [being inflamed,] so inflamed Augustus, that my joyous honours were changed to dismal sorrows.

My soul, in its disdainful mood, thinking to escape disdain by death, made me, though just, unjust against myself.

By the new roots of this tree, I swear to you, never did I break faith to my lord, who was so worthy of honour.

And if any of you return to the world, strengthen the memory of me, which still lies prostrate from the blow that envy gave it.”

The Poet listened a while, and then said to me: “Since he is silent, lose not the hour; but speak, and ask him, if thou wouldst know more.”

Whereat I to him: “Do thou ask him farther, respecting what thou thinkest will satisfy me; for I could not, such pity is upon my heart.”

He therefore resumed: “So may the man do freely for thee what thy words entreat him, O imprisoned spirit, please thee

tell us farther, how the soul gets bound up in these knots; and tell us, if thou mayest, whether any ever frees itself from such members.”

Then the trunk blew strongly, and soon that wind was changed into these words: “Briefly shall you be answered.

When the fierce spirit quits the body, from which it has torn itself, Minos sends it to the seventh gulf.

It falls into the wood, and no place is chosen for it; but wherever fortune flings it, there it sprouts, like grain of spelt;

shoots up to a sapling, and to a savage plant; the Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves, give pain, and to the pain an outlet.

Like the others, we shall go for our spoils, [but not to the end that any may be] clothe[d] with them again: for it is not just that a man have what he takes from himself.

Hither shall we drag them, and through the mournful wood our bodies shall be suspended, each on the thorny tree of its tormented shade.”

We still were listening to the trunk, thinking it would tell us more, when by a noise we were surprised;

like one who feels the boar and chase approaching to his stand, who hears the beasts and the branches crashing.

And, lo! on the left hand, two spirits, naked and torn, fleeing so violently that they broke every fan of the wood.

The foremost: “Come now, come, O death!” And the other, who thought himself too slow, cried: “Lano, thy legs were not so ready

at the jousts of Toppo.” And [since] his breath perhaps [was] failing him, of himself and of a bush he made one group.

Behind them, the wood was filled with black braches, eager and fleet, as greyhounds that have escaped the leash.

Into him, who squatted, they thrust their teeth, and rent him piece by piece; then carried off his miserable limbs.

My Guide now took me by the hand, and led me to the bush, which was lamenting through its bleeding fractures, in vain.

“O Jacomo da Sant’ Andrea!” it cried, “what hast thou gained by making me thy screen? what blame have I of thy sinful life?” When the Master had stopped beside it, he said:

“Who wast thou, who, through so many wounds, blowest forth with blood thy dolorous speech?”

And he to us: “Ye spirits, who are come to see the ignominious mangling which has thus disjoined my leaves from me,

O gather them to the foot of the dismal shrub! I was of the city that changed its first patron for the Baptist, on which account he

with his art will always make it sorrowful; and were it not that at the passage of the Arno there yet remains some semblance of him,

those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it on the ashes left by Attila, would have laboured in vain. I made a gibbet for myself of my own dwelling.”