Harvard Classics Volume 20. Golden Deer Classics

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      Breathest out with blood thy lamentable speech?”

      He answer’d: “O ye spirits! arrived in time

      To spy the shameful havoc that from me

      My leaves hath sever’d thus, gather them up,

      And at the foot of their sad parent-tree

      Carefully lay them. In that city^[97] I dwelt,

      Who for the Baptist her first patron changed,

      Whence he for this shall cease not with his art

      To work her woe: and if there still remain’d not

      On Arno’s passage some faint glimpse of him,

      Those citizens, who rear’d once more her walls

      Upon the ashes left by Attila,

      Had labor’d without profit of their toil.

      I slung the fatal noose^[98] from my own roof.”

Canto XIV

      Argument.—They arrive at the beginning of the third of those compartments into which this seventh circle is divided. It is a plain of dry and hot sand, where three kinds of violence are punished; namely, against God, against Nature, and against Art; and those who have thus sinned, are tormented by flakes of fire, which are eternally showering down upon them. Among the violent against God is found Capaneus, whose blasphemies they hear. Next, turning to the left along the forest of self-slayers, and having journeyed a little onward, they meet with a streamlet of blood that issues from the forest and traverses the sandy plain. Here Virgil speaks to our Poet of a huge ancient statue that stands within Mount Ida in Crete, from a fissure in which statue there is a dripping of tears, from which the said streamlet, together with the three other infernal rivers, are formed.

      Soon as the charity of native land

      Wrought in my bosom, I the scatter’d leaves

      Collected, and to him restored, who now

      Was hoarse with utterance. To the limit thence

      We came, which from the third the second round

      Divides, and where of justice is display’d

      Contrivance horrible. Things then first seen

      Clearlier to manifest, I tell how next

      A plain we reach’d, that from its sterile bed

      Each plant repell’d. The mournful wood waves round

      Its garland on all sides, as round the wood

      Spreads the sad foss. There, on the very edge,

      Our steps we stay’d. It was an area wide

      Of arid sand and thick, resembling most

      The soil that erst by Cato’s foot was trod.

      Vengeance of heaven! Oh! how shouldst thou be fear’d

      By all, who read what here mine eyes beheld.

      Of naked spirits many a flock I saw,

      All weeping piteously, to different laws

      Subjected; for on the earth some lay supine,

      Some crouching close were seated, others paced

      Incessantly around; the latter tribe

      More numerous, those fewer who beneath

      The torment lay, but louder in their grief.

      O’er all the sand fell slowly wafting down

      Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow

      On Alpine summit, when the wind is hush’d.

      As, in the torrid Indian clime, the son

      Of Ammon saw, upon his warrior band

      Descending, solid flames, that to the ground

      Came down; whence he bethought him with his troop

      To trample on the soil; for easier thus

      The vapor was extinguish’d, while alone:

      So fell the eternal fiery flood, wherewith

      The marle glow’d underneath, as under stove

      The viands, doubly to augment the pain.

      Unceasing was the play of wretched hands,

      Now this, now that way glancing, to shake off

      The heat, still falling fresh. I thus began:

      “Instructor! thou who all things overcomest,

      Except the hardy demons that rush’d forth

      To stop our entrance at the gate, say who

      Is yon huge spirit, that, as seems, heeds not

      The burning, but lies writhen in proud scorn,

      As by the sultry tempest immatured?”

      Straight he himself, who was aware I ask’d

      My guide of him, exclaim’d: “Such as I was

      When living, dead such now I am. If Jove

      Weary his workman out, from whom in ire

      He snatch’d the lightnings, that at my last day

      Transfix’d me; if the rest he weary out,

      At their black smithy laboring by turns,

      In Mongibello, while he cries aloud,

      ‘Help, help, good Mulciber!’ as erst he cried

      In the Phlegræan warfare; and the bolts

      Launch he, full aim’d at me, with all his might;

      He never should enjoy a sweet revenge.”

      Then thus my guide, in accent higher raised

      Than I before had heard him: “Capaneus!

      Thou art more punish’d, in that this thy pride

      Lives yet unquench’d: no torment, save thy rage,

      Were to thy fury pain proportion’d full.”

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