Inferno: Canto XV

Now one of the hard margins bears us on, and the smoke of the rivulet makes shade above, so that from the fire it shelters the water and the banks.

As the Flemings between Bruges and [Wissant], dreading the flood that rushes towards them, make their bulwark to repel the sea;

and as the Paduans, along the Brenta, to defend their villages and [castles] ere Chiarentana feels the heat:

in like fashion those banks were formed, though not so high nor so large, the master, whoever it might be, made them.

Already we were so far removed from the wood, that I should not have seen where it was, had I turned back,

when we met a troop of spirits, who were coming alongside the bank; and each looked at us,

as in the evening men are wont to look at one another under a new moon; and towards us sharpened their vision, as an aged tailor does at the eye of his needle.

Thus eyed by that family, I was recognised by one who took me by the skirt, and said:

“What a wonder!” And I, when he stretched out his arm to me, fixed my eyes on his baked aspect, so that the scorching of his visage hindered not

my mind from knowing him; and bending my face to his, I answered: “Are you here, Ser Brunetto?”

And he: “O my son! let it not displease thee, if Brunetto Latini turn back with thee a little, and let go his train.”

I said: “With all my power I do beseech it of you; and if you wish me to sit down with you, I will do so, if it pleases him there, for I go with him.”

“O my son,” he said, “whoever of this flock stops one instant, lies a hundred years thereafter without fanning himself when the fire strikes him.

Therefore go on; I will follow at thy skirts; and then will I rejoin my band, that go lamenting their eternal losses.”

I durst not descend from the road to go level with him; but kept my head bent down, like one who walks in reverence.

He began: “What chance, or destiny, brings thee, ere thy last day, down here? and who is this that shews the way?”

“There above, up in the clear life, I lost myself,” replied I, “in a valley, before my age was full.

Only yester morn I turned my back to it; he appeared to me, as I was returning into it, and guides me home again by this path.”

And he to me: “If thou follow thy star, thou canst not fail of glorious haven, if I discerned rightly in the fair life;

and if I had not died so early, seeing heaven so kind to thee, I would have cheered thee in the work.

But that ungrateful, malignant people, who of old came down from Fiesole, and still savours of the mountain and the rock,

will make itself an enemy to thee for thy good deeds; and there is cause: for amongst the tart sorbtrees, it befits not the sweet fig to fructify.

Old report on earth proclaims them blind, a people avaricious, envious, and proud: look that thou cleanse thyself of their customs.

Thy fortune reserves such honour for thee, that both parties will have a hunger of thee; but far from the goat shall be the grass.

Let the beasts of Fiesole make litter of themselves, and not touch the plant, if any yet springs up amid their rankness,

in which the holy seed revives of those Romans who remained there, when the nest of so much malice [was made].”

“Were my desire all fulfilled,” I answered him, “you had not yet been banished from human nature:

for in my memory is fixed, and now goes to my heart, the dear [and] kind, paternal image of you, when in the world, hour by hour,

you taught me how man makes himself eternal; and whilst I live, beseems my tongue should shew what gratitude I have for it.

That which you relate about my course, I write; and keep it, with another text, for a Lady to comment, who will be able if I get to her.

Thus much I would have you know; so conscience chide me not, I am prepared for Fortune as she wills.

Not new to my ears is such earnest: therefore, let Fortune turn her wheel as pleases her, and the boor his mattock.”

Thereupon my Master turned backward on his right, and looked at me, then said: “He listens well who notes it.”

Not the less I go on speaking with Ser Brunetto, and ask who are the most noted and highest of his companions.

And he to me: “It is good to know of some; of the rest it will be laudable that we keep silence, as the time would be too short for so much talk.

In brief, know that all were clerks, and great scholars, and of great renown; by one same crime on earth defiled.

Priscian goes with that wretched crowd, and Francesco d’Accorso; also, if thou hadst had any longing for such scurf, thou mightest have seen

him there, who by the Servant of servants was translated from the Arno to the Bacchiglione, where he left his ill-strained nerves.

I would say more, but my going and my speech must not be longer: for there I see new smoke arising from the great sand.

People are coming with whom I may not be; let my ‘Treasure,’ in which I still live, be commended to thee; and more I ask not.”

Then he turned back, and seemed like one of those who run for the green cloth at Verona through the open field; and of them seemed he who gains, not he who loses.