Inferno: Canto XXI

Thus from bridge to bridge we came, with other talk which my Comedy cares not to recite;

and held the summit, when we stood still to see the other cleft of Malebolge and [the] other vain lamentings; and I found it marvellously dark.

As in the arsenal of the Venetians boils the clammy pitch in winter, to caulk their damaged ships,

[which] they cannot navigate; and, instead thereof, one builds his ship anew, one plugs the ribs of that which hath made many voyages;

some hammer at the prow, some at the stern; some make oars, and some twist ropes; one mends the jib, and one the mainsail:

so, not by fire but by art Divine, a dense pitch boiled down there, and overglued the banks on every side.

I saw; but saw nought therein, except the bubbles which the boiling raised, and the heaving and compressed subsiding of the whole.

Whilst I was gazing fixtly down on it, my Guide, saying, “Take care, take care!” drew me to him from the place where I was standing.

Then I turned round, like one who longs to see what he must shun, and who is dashed with sudden fear,

so that he puts not off his flight to look; and behind us I saw a black Demon come running up the cliff.

Ah, how ferocious was his aspect! and how bitter he seemed to me in gesture, with his wings outspread, and light of foot!

His shoulders that were sharp and high, a sinner with both haunches laded; and of each foot he held the sinew grasped.

“Ye Malebranche of our bridge!” he said, “lo! one of Santa Zita’s Elders; thrust him under, while I return for others

to that city which [I have] provided well with them: every [one] there is a barrator, except Bonturo; there they make ‘Ay’ of ‘No’ for money.”

Down he threw him, then wheeled along the flinty cliff; and never was mastiff loosed with such a haste to follow thief.

The sinner plunged in, and came up again writhing convolved; but the Demons, who were under cover of the bridge, cried: “Here the Sacred Face besteads not;

here swim ye otherwise than in the Serchio: therefore, unless thou wishest to make trial of our drags, come not out above the pitch.”

Then they struck him with more than a hundred prongs, and said: “Covered thou must dance thee here; so that, if thou canst, thou mayest pilfer privately.”

Not otherwise do the cooks make their vassals dip the flesh into the middle of the boiler with their hooks, to hinder it from floating.

The kind Master said to me: “That it may not be seen that thou art here, cower down behind a jagg, so that thou mayest have some screen for thyself;

and whatever outrage may be done to me, fear not thou: for I know these matters, having once before been in the like affray.”

Then he passed beyond the head of the bridge; and when he arrived on the sixth bank, it was needful for him to have a steadfast front.

With that fury and that storm, wherewith the dogs rush forth upon the poor man who where he stops suddenly seeks alms,

rushed those Demons from beneath the bridge, and turned against him all their crooks; but he cried: “Be none of ye outrageous!

Before ye touch me with your forks, let one of you come forth to hear me, and then take counsel about hooking me.”

All cried: “Let Malacoda go”; thereat one moved himself, the others standing firm, and came to him, saying: “What will this avail him?”

“Dost thou expect, Malacoda,” said my Master, “to find I have come here, secure already against all your hindrances,

without will Divine and fate propitious? Let me pass on: for it is willed in Heaven that I shew another this savage way.”

Then was his pride so fallen, that he let the hook drop at his feet, and said to the others: “Now strike him not!”

And my Guide to me: “O thou that sittest cowering, cowering amongst the great splinters of the bridge, securely now return to me!”

Whereat I moved, and quickly came to him; and the Devils all pressed forward, so that I feared they might not hold the compact.

And thus once I saw the footmen, who marched out under treaty from Caprona, fear at seeing themselves among so many enemies.

I drew near my Guide with my whole body, and turned not away my eyes from the look of them, which was not good.

They lowered their drag-hooks, and kept saying to one another: “Shall I touch him on the rump?” and answering: “Yes, see thou nick it for him.”

But that Demon, who [was speaking] with my Guide, turned instant round, and said: “Quiet, quiet, Scarmiglione!”

Then he said to us: “To go farther by this cliff will not be possible: for the sixth arch lies all in fragments at the bottom;

and if it please you still to go onward, go along this [ridge]: near at hand is another cliff which forms a path.

Yesterday, five hours later than this hour, [completed] a thousand two hundred and sixty-six years since the way here was broken.

Thitherward I send some of these my men, to look if any one be out airing himself; go with them, for they will not be treacherous.”

“Draw forward, Alichino and Calcabrina,” he then began to say, “and thou, Cagnazzo; and let Barbariccia lead the ten.

Let Libicocco come besides, and Draghignazzo, tusked Ciriatto, and Graffiacane, and Farfarello, and furious Rubicante.

Search around the boiling glue; be these safe [so far as] the other crag, which all unbroken goes across the dens.”

“Oh me! Master, what is this that I see?” said I; “ah, without escort let us go alone, if thou knowest the way; for as to me, I seek it not!

If thou beest so wary, as thou art wont, dost thou not see how they grin[d] their teeth, and with their brows threaten mischief to us?”

And he to me: “I would not have thee be afraid; let them grin[d] on at their will: for they do it at the boiled wretches.”

By the sinister bank they turned; but first each of them had pressed his tongue between the teeth toward their Captain, as a signal; and he of his had made a trumpet.