Harvard Classics Volume 20. Golden Deer Classics

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ threatening brow

      Restrain’d them. When their strife a little ceased,

      Of him, who yet was gazing on his wound,

      My teacher thus without delay inquired:

      “Who was the spirit, from whom by evil hap

      Parting, as thou hast told, thou camest to shore?”

      “It was the friar Gomita,”^[151] he rejoin’d,

      “He of Gallura, vessel of all guile,

      Who had his master’s enemies in hand,

      And used them so that they commend him well.

      Money he took, and them at large dismiss’d;

      So he reports; and in each other charge

      Committed to his keeping play’d the part

      Of barterer to the height. With him doth herd

      The chief of Logodoro, Michel Zanche.^[152]

      Sardinia is a theme whereof their tongue

      Is never weary. Out! alas! behold

      That other, how he grins. More would I say,

      But tremble lest he mean to maul me sore.”

      Their captain then to Farfarello turning,

      Who roll’d his moony eyes in act to strike,

      Rebuked him thus: “Off, cursed bird! avaunt!”

      “If ye desire to see or hear,” he thus

      Quaking with dread resumed, “or Tuscan spirits

      Or Lombard, I will cause them to appear.

      Meantime let these ill talons bate their fury,

      So that no vengeance they may fear from them,

      And I, remaining in this self-same place,

      Will, for myself but one, make seven appear,

      When my shrill whistle shall be heard; for so

      Our custom is to call each other up.”

      Cagnazzo at that word deriding grinn’d,

      Then wagg’d the head and spake: “Hear his device,

      Mischievous as he is, to plunge him down.”

      Whereto he thus, who fail’d not in rich store

      Of nice-wove toils: “Mischief, forsooth, extreme!

      Meant only to procure myself more woe.”

      No longer Alichino then refrain’d,

      But thus, the rest gainsaying, him bespake:

      “If thou do cast thee down, I not on foot

      Will chase thee, but above the pitch will beat

      My plumes. Quit we the vantage ground, and let

      The bank be as a shield; that we may see,

      If singly thou prevail against us all.”

      Now, reader, of new sport expect to hear.

      They each one turn’d his eyes to the other shore,

      He first, who was the hardest to persuade.

      The spirit of Navarre chose well his time,

      Planted his feet on land, and at one leap

      Escaping, disappointed their resolve.

      Them quick resentment stung, but him the most

      Who was the cause of failure: in pursuit

      He therefore sped, exclaiming, “Thou art caught.”

      But little it avail’d; terror outstripp’d

      His following flight; the other plunged beneath,

      And he with upward pinion raised his breast:

      E’en thus the water-fowl, when she perceives

      The falcon near, dives instant down, while he

      Enraged and spent retires. That mockery

      In Calcabrina fury stirr’d, who flew

      After him, with desire of strife inflamed;

      And, for the barterer had ’scaped, so turn’d

      His talons on his comrade. O’er the dyke

      In grapple close they join’d; but the other proved

      A goshawk able to rend well his foe;

      And in the boiling lake both fell. The heat

      Was umpire soon between them; but in vain

      To lift themselves they strove, so fast were glued

      Their pennons. Barbariccia, as the rest,

      That chance lamenting, four in flight despatch’d

      From the other coast, with all their weapons arm’d.

      They, to their post on each side speedily

      Descending, stretch’d their hooks toward the fiends,

      Who flounder’d, inly burning from their scars:

      And we departing left them to that broil.

Canto XXIII

      Argument.—The enraged Demons pursue Dante, but he is preserved from them by Virgil. On reaching the sixth gulf, he beholds the punishment of the hypocrites; which is, to pace continually round the gulf under the pressure of caps and hoods, that are gilt on the outside, but leaden within. He is addressed by two of these, Catalano and Loderingo, Knights of St. Mary, otherwise called Joyous Friars of Bologna. Caïaphas is seen fixed to a cross on the ground, and lies so stretched along the way, that all tread on him in passing.

      In silence and in solitude we went,

      One first, the other following his steps,

      As minor friars journeying on their road.

      The present fray had turn’d my thoughts to muse

      Upon old Æsop’s fable,^[153] where he СКАЧАТЬ