Canto XVII
CANTO XVII
The swimming figure comes in view and proves to be a grotesque monster with the deceptively human face of a just man, a beastly body dyed like an oriental tapestry, and a serpent’s tail venomously tipped like a scorpion’s stinger—a hideous image of fraud. As though a beached sea craft only half ashore, it lands its head and bristly clutches upon the brink, with its hinder part dangling in the void like the beaver thought to dip its tail into the water to fish (1–27). In order to reach the unsightly creature, the Poets descend from the dike and hold to a stone verge on the right when they see a group of moneylenders huddled on the sizzling sands under the downpour of fire. Virgil sends Dante to investigate them on his own while he remains to negotiate their passage with the beast (28–42). The eyes of the usurers are bulging with pain as their hands alternately lift them from the sands and swat away the flames just as a dog shoos away summer flies. Unable to recognize any of their singed faces, the Pilgrim notes their coats of arms upon the moneybags bound around their necks. They all bear animals as symbols of their bestiality (43–65). A solitary Paduan prophesies the arrival of a certain Vitaliano from Florence and vulgarly sticks out his tongue at his Florentine comrades, who have been deafening his ears. Then, without even deigning to speak, the Poet leaves them (66–78). His Guide has already straddled the monstrous brute and bids Dante mount. Shivering feverishly at the thought, the Pilgrim climbs dumbfounded upon the gigantic shoulders (79–96). At Virgil’s command, the leviathan, whose name is Geryon, casts off from shore and slithers like an eel through the empty abyss, while the Poet, seeing nothing but air on every side, trembles like Phaethon losing his reins or Icarus his wings (97–114). As Geryon drifts down, Dante first feels only the upward rush of air, then hears the din of a whirlpool, and finally sees a blaze below. At last, the beast alights like a weary falcon, disburdens himself of his passengers, and shoots off again with the speed of an arrow (115–136).
1 “Behold the beast with pointed tail unfurled,
Which passes peaks, breaks walls and arms of war!
Behold the one that stinks up all the world!”[261]
4 My Leader thus began to speak once more;
And where there ends the stony passageway,
He beckoned it that it might come ashore.[262]
7 Fraud’s filthy image had just made its way
On up to land with head and chest robust,
But did not draw its tail upon that quay.
10 Its face was like the face of someone just,
For it had features so benign without;
Its trunk appeared just as a serpent’s must,
13 And from its armpits hairy clutches sprout;
Its back and breast and both its sides displayed
Small knots and circles painted all about.
16 Such colors Turks or Tartars never laid
In ground or pattern on a fabric’s face,
Nor has such webs Arachne ever made.[263]
19 As boats at times will lie ashore in place,
With part in water and with part on land,
And as among the guzzling German race
22 To wage his war the beaver takes his stand,
Just so that worst of savage creatures flipped
Upon the edge of stone that bounds the sand.
25 And as through empty space its tailpiece whipped,
It turned its venomed fork with upward flair,
With which, like scorpions, its point was tipped.
28 My Leader said to me: “We now must bear
A little from our pathway to the site
Of that malicious beast which crouches there.”
31 We thus made our descent upon the right:
Ten steps upon that verge we were to trace
So as to miss the sand and flaming blight.
34 And when we had descended to its place,
I saw upon the sand, a bit away,
Some people sitting near the empty space.[264]
37 My Master told me: “That you may convey
From full experience this circle's wrong,
Go witness what condition they display.
40 But do not let your talk with them be long.
Until you have returned, I’ll speak with it
That it may lend us shoulders that are strong.”
43 So I advanced alone and did not quit
The outer margin of the seventh round
Till reaching where the dismal people sit.
46 Their eyes burst forth with pain, and all around,
Now here, now there, they use their hands to bat
Away the flames or fend off burning ground.
49 Nor do the dogs do otherwise than that
With snout or paw beneath the summer skies
When they are stung by flea, or fly, or gnat.
52 When on the face of some I set my eyes,
On whom fall painful fires from up on high,
There was not one whom I could recognize.
55 I saw that round their necks, though, pouches lie,
Which had a certain sign and certain hue,[265]
And that is where they seem to feast the eye.
58 I looked around on coming to that crew,
And I beheld a yellow purse all bright,
Which had a lion’s face and form in blue.
61 And next, proceeding with my course of sight,
I saw another show on bloody red
A goose much whiter yet than butter’s white.
64 But one possessed a small white sack instead,
Marked with a pregnant sow that’s azure-dyed.
“What are you doing in this ditch?” he said.
67 “Now go away! And since you have not died,
Know that Vitalïano will sit here,[266]
Who was my neighbor, on my left-hand side.
70 How often do they thunder in my ear,
These Florentines—for Paduan am I—[267]
And shout: ‘Let come the sovran cavalier[268]
73 Who’ll bring the purse with triple he-goats by!’”
With tongue stuck out to lick his nose the way
That oxen do, his mouth had turned awry.
76 And I, afraid that any longer stay
Might anger him who warned to be not long,
Turned from those weary souls and went away.
79 I found my Guide by then had climbed along
The backbone of that savage beast, from where
He said to me: “Be daring now and strong!
82 From here on we descend by such a stair.
You mount ahead; I want the middle here,
So that his tail may nowise harm you there.”
85 As one who feels the quartan fever near,[269]
And shivers with his nails already blue,
And shakes when he but sees the shade appear,
88 When all these words were uttered, so I grew,
But felt the threat of shame, for it will brace
A servant with a worthy lord in view.
91 On those great shoulders I took up my place.
And though my voice came not as I believed,
I wished to say: “Take me in your embrace.”
94 And he who had another time relieved
My other plight, once I had sat upon[270]
That monster, clasped me in his arms and cleaved
97 To me, while saying: “Geryon, move on!
But make your circles wide, your landing slow;
Remember this new burden that you don.”
100 And just as bit by bit a small bateau
Will leave its place, so it withdrew from there;
And when it felt itself quite free to go,
103 It turned its tail and stretched it out to where
Its breast had been and moved it like an eel,
And with its paws it gathered in the air.
106 I think that Phaëthon did not yet feel
So great a fear in casting off the rein[271]
(When skies were scorched, as they themselves reveal),
109 Nor yet did Icarus, that wretched swain,[272]
With melting wax unfeathering his side,
His father crying, “That way’s wrong!” in vain,
112 Than I endured when everywhere I spied
Was only air, and when I saw down low
That every view died out—that beast aside.
115 And it continued swimming on quite slow,
Though I but felt its wheeling, sinking flight
By wind upon my face and from below.
118 A whirlpool down beneath us on the right[273]
Now made a horrid roar, which I could hear,
So that I stretched my neck with downcast sight.
121 Then our descending caused me greater fear
For I saw fires and heard laments outpour,
And that is why I, trembling, clung quite near.
124 I witnessed what I had not seen before—
Our sinking circles—by the massive woe
On every side approaching ever more.
127 As falcons on the wing too long (which, though
They do not have a lure or bird in sight,
Will make the hawkers cry: “Oh, down you go!”)
130 Descend fatigued from where they took quick flight,
On having made a hundred circles round,
To land far from their lords in scorn and spite,
133 Thus Geryon had set us on the ground,
Just at a jagged boulder’s foot, and so,
On being of our persons thus unbound,
136 He vanished like an arrow from the bow.