Inferno: Canto XVII

“Behold the savage beast with the pointed tail, that passes mountains, and breaks through walls and weapons; behold him that pollutes the whole world.”

Thus began my Guide to speak to me; and beckoned him to come ashore, near the end of our rocky path;

and that uncleanly image of Fraud came onward, and landed his head and bust, but drew not his tail upon the bank.

His face was the face of a just man, so mild an aspect had it outwardly; and the rest was all a reptile’s body.

He had two paws, hairy to the armpits; the neck and the breast, and both the flanks, were painted with knots and circlets:

never did Tartars or Turks [make cloth] with more colours, [groundwork and] broidery; nor by Arachne were such webs laid on her loom.

As at times the wherries lie on shore, that are part in water and part on land; and as there amongst the guzzling Germans

the beaver adjusts himself to wage his war: so lay that worst of savage beasts upon the brim which closes the great sand with stone.

In the void glanced all his tail, twisting upwards the venomed fork, which, as in scorpions, armed the point.

My Guide said: “Now must we bend our way a little, to that wicked brute which couches there.”

Then we descended on the right, and made ten paces towards the edge, that we might quite avoid the sand and flames;

and when we came to him, I saw upon the sand, a little farther onwards, people sitting near the empty space.

Here my Master said to me: “That thou mayest carry full experience of this round, go and see the state of these.

Let thy talk with them be brief, till thou returnest, I will speak with this beast, that he may lend us his strong shoulders.”

Thus also, on the utmost limit of that seventh circle, all alone I went to where the woful folk were seated.

Through the eyes their grief was bursting forth; on this side, on that, they with their hands kept warding off, sometimes the flames, sometimes the burning soil.

Not otherwise the dogs in summer do, now with snout, now with paw, when they are bitten by fleas, or flies, or breeses.

After I had set my eyes upon the visages of several on whom the dolorous fire falls, I knew not any of them; but I observed that from the neck of each there hung a pouch,

which had a certain colour and a certain impress, and thereon it seems their eye is feasting.

And as I came amongst them looking, on a yellow purse I saw azure, that had the semblance and gesture of a lion.

Then, my look continuing its course, I saw another of them, [red as] blood, display a goose more white than butter.

And one who, with a sow azure and pregnant, had his argent sacklet stamped, said to me: “What art thou doing in this pit?

Get thee gone; and, as thou art still alive, know that my neighbour Vitaliano shall sit here at my left side.

With these Florentines am I, a Paduan; many a time they din my ears, shouting: ‘Let the sovereign cavalier come, who will bring the pouch with three goats!’”

Then he writhed his mouth, and thrust his tongue out, like an ox that licks his nose.

And I, dreading lest longer stay might anger him who had admonished me to stay short time, turned back from those fore-wearied souls.

I found my Guide, who had already mounted on the haunch of the dreadful animal; and he said to me: “Now be stout and bold!

Now by such stairs must we descend; mount thou in front: for I wish to be in the middle, that the tail may not do hurt to thee.”

As one who has the shivering of the quartan so near, that he has his nails already pale, and trembles all, still keeping the shade,

such I became when these words were uttered; but his threats excited in me shame, which makes a servant brave in presence of a worthy master.

I placed myself on those huge shoulders; [I] wished to say, only the voice came not as I thought: “See that thou embrace me.”

But he, who at other times assisted me in other difficulties, soon as I mounted, clasped me with his arms, and held me up;

then he said: “Geryon, now move thee! be thy circles large, and gradual thy descent: think of the unusual burden that thou hast.”

As the bark goes from its station backwards, backwards, so the monster took himself from thence; and when he felt himself quite loose,

there where his breast had been he turned his tail, and stretching moved it, like an eel, and with his paws gathered the air to him.

Greater fear there was not, I believe, when Phaeton let loose the reins, whereby the sky,

as yet appears, was burnt;—nor when poor Icarus felt his loins unfeathering by the heating of the wax, his father crying to him, “An ill way thou goest!”—

than was mine, when I saw myself in the air on all sides, and saw extinguished every sight, save of the beast.

He goes on swimming slowly, slowly; wheels and descends; but I perceive it not, otherwise than by a wind upon my face and from below.

Already, on the right hand, I heard the whirlpool make a hideous roaring under us; whereat, with eyes downwards, my head I stretched.

Then was I more timorous [as regards dismount ing]: for I saw fires and heard lamentings, so that I cower all trembling.

And then I saw—[for] I had not seen [it] before—the sinking and the wheeling, through the great evils which drew near on diverse sides.

As the falcon, that has been long upon his wings—that, without seeing bird or lure, makes the falconer cry, “Ah, ah! thou stoopest?”—

descends weary; then swiftly moves himself with many a circle, and far from his master sets himself disdainful and sullen:

so at the bottom Geryon set us, close to the foot of the ragged rock; and, from our weight relieved, he bounded off like an arrow from the string.