THE DIVINE COMEDY: Inferno, Purgatorio & Paradiso (3 Classic Translations in One Edition). Dante Alighieri

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CANTO XXX

       WHAT time resentment burn'd in Juno's breast

       For Semele against the Theban blood,

       As more than once in dire mischance was rued,

       Such fatal frenzy seiz'd on Athamas,

       That he his spouse beholding with a babe

       Laden on either arm, "Spread out," he cried,

       "The meshes, that I take the lioness

       And the young lions at the pass:" then forth

       Stretch'd he his merciless talons, grasping one,

       One helpless innocent, Learchus nam'd,

       Whom swinging down he dash'd upon a rock,

       And with her other burden self-destroy'd

       The hapless mother plung'd: and when the pride

       Of all-presuming Troy fell from its height,

       By fortune overwhelm'd, and the old king

       With his realm perish'd, then did Hecuba,

       A wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw

       Polyxena first slaughter'd, and her son,

       Her Polydorus, on the wild sea-beach

       Next met the mourner's view, then reft of sense

       Did she run barking even as a dog;

       Such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul.

       Bet ne'er the Furies or of Thebes or Troy

       With such fell cruelty were seen, their goads

       Infixing in the limbs of man or beast,

       As now two pale and naked ghost I saw

       That gnarling wildly scamper'd, like the swine

       Excluded from his stye. One reach'd Capocchio,

       And in the neck-joint sticking deep his fangs,

       Dragg'd him, that o'er the solid pavement rubb'd

       His belly stretch'd out prone. The other shape,

       He of Arezzo, there left trembling, spake;

       "That sprite of air is Schicchi; in like mood

       Of random mischief vent he still his spite."