Inferno: Canto XXX

At the time that Juno was incensed for Semele against the Theban blood, as she already more than once had shewn,

Athamas grew so insane, that he, seeing his wife, with two sons, [go] laden on either hand,

cried: “Spread we the nets, that I may take the lioness and her young lions at the pass;” and then stretched out his pitiless talons,

grasping the one who had the name Learchus; and whirled him, and dashed him on a rock; and she with her other burden drowned herself.

And when Fortune brought low the all-daring pride of the Trojans, so that the King together with his kingdom was blotted out;

Hecuba, sad, miserable, and captive, after she had seen Polyxena slain, and, forlorn, discerned her Polydorus,

on the sea-strand, she, out of her senses, barked like a dog: to such a degree had [the] sorrow wrung her soul.

But neither Theban Furies nor Trojan were ever seen in aught so cruel—not in stinging brutes, and much less human limbs;

as I saw [in] two shadows, pale and naked, which ran biting in the manner that a hungry swine does when he is thrust out from his sty.

The one came to Capocchio, and fixed its tusks on his neck-joint, so that, dragging him, it made the solid bottom claw his belly.

And the Aretine, who remained trembling, said to me: “That goblin is Gianni Schicchi; and, rabid, he goes thus mangling others.”

“Oh!” said I to him, “so may the other not plant its teeth on thee, be pleased to tell us who it is, ere it snatch itself away.”

And he to me: “That is the ancient spirit of flagitious Myrrha, who loved her father with more than rightful love.

She came to sin with him disguised in alien form; even as the other who there is going away, undertook,

that he might gain the Lady of the troop, to disguise himself as Buoso Donati, making a testament and giving to it legal form.”

And when the furious two, on whom I had kept my eye, were passed, I turned it to observe the other ill-born spirits,

I saw one shapen like a lute, if he had only had Adam of his groin cut short at the part where man is forked.

The heavy dropsy, which with its humour so disproportions the limbs, that the visage corresponds not to the paunch,

made him hold his lips apart, as does the hectic patient, who for thirst curls the one lip towards the chin, and the other upwards.

“O ye! who are exempt from every punishment (and why I know not), in this grim world,” said he to us, “look and attend

to the misery of Master Adam: when alive, I had enough of what I wished; and now, alas! I crave one little drop of water.

The rivulets that from the verdant hills of Casentino descend into the Arno, making their channels cool and moist,

stand constantly before me, and not in vain: for the image of them dries me up far more than the disease which from my visage wears the flesh.

The rigid Justice, which searches me, takes occasion from the place at which I sinned, to give my sighs a quicker flight.

There is Romena where [I] falsified the alloy, sealed with the Baptist’s image: for which on earth I left my body burnt.

But if I could see the miserable soul of Guido here, or of Alessandro, or their brother, for Branda’s fount I would not give the sight.

One is in already, if the mad shadows that are going round speak true; but what avails it me whose limbs are tied?

Were I only still so light, that I could move one inch in a hundred years, I had already put myself upon the road,

to seek him among this disfigured people, though it winds round eleven miles, and is not less than half a mile across.

Through them am I in such a crew: they induced me to stamp the florins that had three carats of alloy.”

And I to him: “Who are the abject two, lying close to thy right confines, and smoking like a hand bathed in winter-time?”

“Here I found them, when I rained into this pinfold,” he answered; “and since then they have not given a turn, and may not give, I think, to all eternity.

One is the false wife who accused Joseph; the other is false Sinon, the Greek from Troy; burning fever makes them reek so strongly.”

And one of them, who took offence perhaps at being named thus darkly, smote the rigid belly of him with his fist;

it sounded like a drum; and Master Adam smote him in the face with his arm, that did not seem less hard,

saying to him: “Though I am kept from moving by my weighty limbs, I have an arm free for such necessity.”

Thereat he answered: “When thou wast going to the fire, thou hadst it not so ready; but as ready, and more, when thou wast coining.”

And he of the dropsy: “In this thou sayest true; but thou wast not so true a witness there, when questioned of the truth at Troy.”

“If I spoke false, thou too didst falsify the coin,” said Sinon; “and I am here for one crime, and thou for more than any other Demon.”

“Bethink thee, perjurer, of the horse,” answered he who had the inflated paunch; “and be it a torture to thee that all the world knows thereof.”

“To thee be torture the thirst that cracks thy tongue,” replied the Greek, “and the foul water which makes that belly such a hedge before thy eyes.”

Then the coiner: “Thus thy jaw gapes wide, as usual, to speak ill: for if I have thirst, and moisture stuffs me,

thou hast the burning, and the head that pains thee; and to make thee lap the mirror of Narcissus thou wouldst not require many words of invitation.”

I was standing all intent to hear them, when the Master said to me: “Now keep looking, a little longer and I quarrel with thee!”

When I heard him speak to me in anger, I turned towards him with such shame, that it comes over me again as I but think of it.

And as one who dreams of something hurtful to him, and dreaming wishes it a dream, so that he longs for that which is, as if it were not:

such grew I, who, without power to speak, wished to excuse myself and all the while excused, and did not think that I was doing it.

“Less shame washes off a greater fault than thine has been,” said the Master: “therefore unload thee of all sorrow;

and count that I am always at thy side, should it again fall out that Fortune brings thee where people are in similar contests: for the wish to hear it is a vulgar wish.”