Inferno: Canto XXIX

The many folk and wounds of divers kind
Had flushed mine eyes and set them on the flow,
Till I to weep and linger had a mind;

But Virgil said to me: 'Why gazing so?
Why still thy vision fastening on the crew
Of dismal shades dismembered there below?

Thou didst not thus the other Bolgias view:
Think, if to count them be thine enterprise,
The valley circles twenty miles and two.

Beneath our feet the moon already lies;
The time wears fast away to us decreed;
And greater things than these await thine eyes.'

I answered swift: 'Hadst thou but given heed
To why it was my looks were downward bent,
To yet more stay thou mightest have agreed.'

My Guide meanwhile was moving, and I went
Behind him and continued to reply,
Adding: 'Within the moat on which intent

I now was gazing with such eager eye
I trow a spirit weeps, one of my kin,
The crime whose guilt is rated there so high.'

Then said the Master: 'Henceforth hold thou in
Thy thoughts from wandering to him: new things claim
Attention now, so leave him with his sin.

Him saw I at thee from the bridge-foot aim
A threatening finger, while he made thee known;
Geri del Bello heard I named his name.

But, at the time, thou wast with him alone
Engrossed who once held Hautefort, nor the place
Didst look at where he was; so passed he on.'

'O Leader mine! death violent and base,
And not avenged as yet,' I made reply,
'By any of his partners in disgrace,

Made him disdainful; therefore went he by
And spake not with me, if I judge aright;
Which does the more my ruth intensify.'

So we conversed till from the cliff we might
Of the next valley have had prospect good
Down to the bottom, with but clearer light.

When we above the inmost Cloister stood
Of Malebolge, and discerned the crew
Of such as there compose the Brotherhood,

So many lamentations pierced me through--
And barbed with pity all the shafts were sped--
My open palms across my ears I drew.

From Valdichiana's every spital bed
All ailments to September from July,
With all in Maremma and Sardinia bred,

Heaped in one pit a sickness might supply
Like what was here; and from it rose a stink
Like that which comes from limbs that putrefy.

Then we descended by the utmost brink
Of the long ridge--leftward once more we fell--
Until my vision, quickened now, could sink

Deeper to where Justice infallible,
The minister of the Almighty Lord,
Chastises forgers doomed on earth to Hell.

Ægina could no sadder sight afford,
As I believe (when all the people ailed
And all the air was so with sickness stored,

Down to the very worms creation failed
And died, whereon the pristine folk once more,
As by the poets is for certain held,

From seed of ants their family did restore),
Than what was offered by that valley black
With plague-struck spirits heaped upon the floor.

Supine some lay, each on the other's back
Or stomach; and some crawled with crouching gait
For change of place along the doleful track.

Speechless we moved with step deliberate,
With eyes and ears on those disease crushed down
Nor left them power to lift their bodies straight.

I saw two sit, shoulder to shoulder thrown
As plate holds plate up to be warmed, from head
Down to the feet with scurf and scab o'ergrown.

Nor ever saw I curry-comb so plied
By varlet with his master standing by,
Or by one kept unwillingly from bed,

As I saw each of these his scratchers ply
Upon himself; for nought else now avails
Against the itch which plagues them furiously.

The scab they tore and loosened with their nails,
As with a knife men use the bream to strip,
Or any other fish with larger scales.

'Thou, that thy mail dost with thy fingers rip,'
My Guide to one of them began to say,
'And sometimes dost with them as pincers nip,

Tell, is there any here from Italy
Among you all, so may thy nails suffice
For this their work to all eternity.'

'Latians are both of us in this disguise
Of wretchedness,' weeping said one of those;
'But who art thou, demanding on this wise?'

My Guide made answer: 'I am one who goes
Down with this living man from steep to steep
That I to him Inferno may disclose.'

Then broke their mutual prop; trembling with deep
Amazement each turned to me, with the rest
To whom his words had echoed in the heap.

Me the good Master cordially addressed:
'Whate'er thou hast a mind to ask them, say.'
And since he wished it, thus I made request:

'So may remembrance of you not decay
Within the upper world out of the mind
Of men, but flourish still for many a day,

As ye shall tell your names and what your kind:
Let not your vile, disgusting punishment
To full confession make you disinclined.'

'An Aretine, I to the stake was sent
By Albert of Siena,' one confessed,
'But came not here through that for which I went

To death. 'Tis true I told him all in jest,
I through the air could float in upward gyre;
And he, inquisitive and dull at best,

Did full instruction in the art require:
I could not make him Dædalus, so then
His second father sent me to the fire.

But to the deepest Bolgia of the ten,
For alchemy which in the world I wrought,
The unerring Minos doomed me.' 'Now were men

E'er found,' I of the Poet asked, 'so fraught
With vanity as are the Sienese?
French vanity to theirs is surely nought.'

The other leper hearing me, to these
My words: 'Omit the Stricca,' swift did shout,
'Who knew his tastes with temperance to please;

And Nicholas, who earliest found out
The lavish custom of the clove-stuffed roast
Within the garden where such seed doth sprout.

Nor count the club where Caccia d' Ascian lost
Vineyards and woods; 'mid whom away did throw
His wit the Abbagliato. But whose ghost

It is, that thou mayst weet, that backs thee so
Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eyes
That thou my countenance mayst surely know.

In me Capocchio's shade thou'lt recognise,
Who forged false coin by means of alchemy:
Thou must remember, if I well surmise,

How I of nature very ape could be.'