Inferno: Canto XXV

At the conclusion of his words, the thief raised up his hands with both the figs, shouting: “Take them, God, for at thee I aim them!”

From this time forth the serpents were my friends; for one of them then coiled itself about his neck, as if saying: “Thou shalt speak no farther!”

and another about his arms; and it tied him again, rivetting itself in front so firmly, that he could not give a jog with them.

Ah, Pistoia! Pistoia! why dost thou not decree to turn thyself to ashes, that thou mayest endure no longer since thou outgoest thy seed in evil-doing?

Through all the dark circles of Hell, I saw no spirit against God so proud, not even him who fell at Thebes down from the walls.

He fled, speaking not another word; and I saw a Centaur, full of rage, come crying: “Where is, where is the surly one?”

Maremma, I do believe, has not so many snakes as he had on his haunch, to where our human form begins.

Over his shoulders, behind the head, a dragon lay with outstretched wings; and it sets on fire every one he meets.

My Master said: “That is Cacus, who, beneath the rock of Mount Aventine, full often made a lake of blood.

He goes not with his brethren on one same road, because of the cunning theft he made [of] the great herd that lay near him:

whence his crooked actions ceased beneath the club of Hercules, who gave him perhaps a hundred blows with it; and he felt not the first ten.”

Whilst he thus spake, the Centaur ran past, and also under us there came three spirits, whom neither I nor my Guide perceived,

until they cried: “Who are ye?” Our story therefore paused, and we then gave heed to them alone.

I knew them not; but it happened, as usually it happens by some chance, that one had to name another,

saying: “Where has Cianfa stopt?” Whereat I, in order that my Guide might stand attentive, placed my finger upwards from the chin to the nose.

If thou art now, O Reader, slow to credit what I have to tell, it will be no wonder: for I who saw it, scarce allow it to myself.

Whilst I kept gazing on them, lo! a serpent with six feet darts up in front of one, and fastens itself all upon him.

With its middle feet it clasped his belly, with the anterior it seized his arms; then fixed its teeth in both his cheeks.

The hinder feet it stretched along his thighs; and put its tail between the two, and bent it upwards on his loins behind.

Ivy was never so rooted to a tree, as round the other’s limbs the hideous monster entwined its own;

then they stuck together, as if they had been of heated wax, and mingled their colours; neither the one, nor the other, now seemed what it was at first:

as up before the flame on paper, goes a brown colour which is not yet black, and the white dies away.

The other two looked on, and each cried: “O me! Agnello, how thou changest! lo, thou art already neither two nor one!”

The two heads had now become one, when two shapes appeared to us mixed in one face, where both were lost.

Two arms were made of the four lists; the thighs with the legs, the belly, and the chest, became such members as were never seen.

The former shape was all extinct in them: both, and neither, the perverse image seemed; and such it went away with languid step.

As the lizard, beneath the mighty scourge of the canicular days, going from hedge to hedge, appears a flash of lightning, if it cross the way:

so, coming towards the bowels of the other two, appeared a little reptile burning with rage, livid and black as pepper corn.

And it pierced that part, in one of them, at which we first receive our nourishment; then fell down stretched out before him.

The pierced thief gazed on it but said nothing; nay, with his feet motionless, yawned only as if sleep or fever had come upon him.

He eyed the reptile, the reptile him; the one from his wound, the other from its mouth, smoked violently, and their smoke met.

Let Lucan now be silent, where he tells of poor Sabellus and Nasidius; and wait to hear that which is now sent forth.

Of Cadmus and of Arethusa be Ovid silent: for if he, poetizing, converts the one into a serpent and the other into a fount, I envy him not:

for never did he so transmute two natures front to front, that both forms were ready to exchange their substance.

They mutually responded in such a way, that the reptile cleft its tail into a fork, and the wounded spirit drew his steps together.

The legs and the thighs along with them so stuck to one another, that soon their juncture left no mark that was discernible.

The cloven tail assumed the figure that was lost in the other; and its skin grew soft, the other’s hard.

I saw the arms enter at the armpits, and the two feet of the brute, which were short, lengthen themselves as much as those arms were shortened.

Then the two hinder feet, twisted together, became the member which man conceals; and the wretch from his had two thrust forth.

Whilst the smoke with a new colour veils them both, and generates on one part hair, and strips it from another,

the one rose upright, and prostrate the other fell, not therefore turning the impious lights, under which they mutually exchanged visages.

He that was erect, drew his towards the temples; and from the too much matter that went thither, ears came out of the smooth cheeks;

that which went not back, but was retained, of its superfluity formed a nose, and enlarged the lips to a fit size.

He that lay prone, thrusts forward his sharpened visage, and draws back his ears into the head, as the snail does its horns;

and his tongue, which was before united and apt for speech, cleaves itself; and in the other the forked tongue recloses; and the smoke now rests.

The soul that had become a brute, [fled] hissing along the valley, and after it the other talking and sputtering.

Then he turned his novel shoulders towards it, and said to the other: “Buoso shall run crawling, as I have done, along this road!”

Thus I beheld the seventh ballast change and rechange; and here let the novelty excuse me, if my tongue [pen] goes aught astray.

And though my eyes were somewhat perplexed, and my mind dismayed, [those] could not flee so covertly,

but that I well distinguished Puccio Sciancato: and it was he alone, of the three companions that first came, who was not changed; the other was he whom thou, Gaville, lamentest.