Inferno: Canto XXIV

In that part of the youthful year, when the Sun tempers his locks beneath Aquarius, and the nights already wane towards half the day,

when the hoar-frost copies his white sister’s image on the ground, but short while lasts the temper of his pen,

the peasant, whose fodder fails, rises, and looks, and sees the fields all white; whereat he smites his thigh,

goes back into the house, and to and fro laments like a poor wight who knows not what to do; then comes out again, and recovers hope,

observing how the world has changed its face in little time; and takes his staff, and chases forth his lambs to feed:

thus the Master made me despond, when I saw his brow so troubled; and thus quickly to the sore the plaster came.

For when we reached the shattered bridge, my Guide turned to me with that sweet aspect which I saw [first] at the foot of the mountain.

He opened his arms after having chosen some plan within himself, first looking well at the ruin, and took hold of me.

And as one who works, and calculates, always seeming to provide beforehand: so, lifting me up towards the top

of one big block, he looked out another splinter, saying: “Now clamber over that, but try first if it will carry thee.”

It was no way for one clad with cloak of lead: for scarcely we, he light and I pushed on, could mount up from jagg to jagg.

And were it not that on that precinct the ascent was shorter than on the other, I know not about him, but I certainly had been defeated.

But as Malebolge all hangs towards the entrance of the lowest well, the site of every valley imports

that one side rises and the other descends; we, however, came at length to the point from which the last stone breaks off.

The breath was so exhausted from my lungs, when I was up, that I could no farther; nay, seated me at my first arrival.

“Now it behooves thee thus to free thyself from sloth,” said the Master: “for sitting on down, or under coverlet, men come not into fame;

without which whoso consumes his life, leaves such vestige of himself on earth, as smoke in air or foam in water;

and therefore rise! conquer thy panting with the soul, that conquers every battle, if with its heavy body it sinks not down.

A longer ladder must be climbed: to have quitted these is not enough; if thou understandest me, now act so that it may profit thee.”

I then rose, showing myself better furnished with breath than I felt, and said: “Go on; for I am strong and confident.”

We took our way up the cliff, which was rugged, narrow, and difficult, and greatly steeper than the former.

Speaking I went, that I might not seem faint; whereat a voice came from the other fosse, unsuitable for forming words.

I know not what it said, though I already was on the ridge of the arch which crosses there; but he who spake seemed moved to anger.

I had turned myself downwards; but my living eyes could not reach the bottom for the darkness; wherefore I: “Master, see that thou get to the other belt, and let us dismount the wall:

for as I hear from hence and do not understand, so I see down and distinguish nothing.”

“Other answer I give thee not,” he said, “than the deed: for a fit request should be followed with the work in silence.”

We went down the bridge, at the head where it joins with the eighth bank; and then the chasm was manifest to me:

and I saw within it a fearful throng of serpents, and of so strange a look, that even now the recollection scares my blood.

Let Libya boast no longer with its sand; for, though it engenders chelydri, jaculi and pareæ, and cenchres with amphisbaena,

plagues so numerous or so dire it never shewed, with all Ethiopia, nor with the land that lies by the Red Sea.

Amid this cruel and most dismal swarm were people running, naked and terrified, without hope of lurking hole or heliotrope.

They had their hands tied behind with serpents; these through their loins fixed the tail and the head, and were coiled in knots before.

And lo! at one, who was near our shore, sprang up a serpent, which transfixed him there where the neck is bound upon the shoulders.

Neither “O” nor “I” was ever written so quickly as he took fire, and burnt, and dropt down all changed to ashes;

and after he was thus dissolved upon the ground, the [powder] reunited of [itself and] at once resumed the former shape:

thus by great sages ’tis confest the Phoenix dies, and then is born again, when it approaches the five-hundredth year;

in its life it eats no herb or grain, but only tears of incense and amomum; and nard and myrrh are its last swathings.

And as one who falls, and knows not how, through force of Demon which drags him to the ground, or of other obstruction that fetters men;

who, when he rises, looks fixtly round him, all bewildered by the great anguish he has undergone, and looking sighs:

such was the sinner when he rose. [Power] of God! O how severe, that showers such blows in vengeance!

The Guide then asked him who he was; whereupon he answered: “I rained from Tuscany, short while ago, into this fierce gullet.

Bestial life, not human, pleased me, mule that I was; I am Vanni Fucci, savage beast; and Pistoia was a fitting den for me.”

And I to the Guide: “Tell him not to budge; and ask what crime thrust him down here, for I saw him once a man of rage and blood.”

And the sinner who heard, feigned not; but directed towards me his mind and face, with a look of dismal shame;

then he said: “It pains me more that thou hast caught me in the misery wherein thou seest me, than when I was taken from the other life.

I cannot deny thee what thou askest: I am put down so far, because I robbed the sacristy of its goodly furniture;

and falsely once it was imputed to others. But that thou mayest not joy in this sight, if ever thou escape the dark abodes,

open thy ears and hear what I announce: Pistoia first is thinned of Neri; then Florence renovates her people and her laws.

Mars brings from Valdimagra a fiery vapour, which is wrapt in turbid clouds, and with angry and impetuous storm [a battle] shall be [fought] on Piceno’s field;

whence it suddenly shall rend the mist, so that every Bianco shall be wounded by it. And I have said this [so that] it [may] grieve thee.”