Canto XXVIII
CANTO XXVIII
All the bloodshed in Apulia, from the Samnite and Punic wars, through Robert Guiscard’s combat with Greeks and Saracens, up to the battles of Benevento and Tagliacozzo, could not equal the carnage of the ninth ditch, where sowers of discord are punished (1–21). Slashed from chin to crotch with his entrails spilled forth is Mohammed (here considered a Christian schismatic), just as his nephew Ali, whose contested caliphate brewed internal factions, is dissevered from forelock to chin. All those who rent religious, political, and familial unity in life must now circle before a devil’s sword. After they are cleft apart, their wounds close, only to be gashed open again on the next round (22–42). When Virgil tells the founder of Islam that Dante is still alive, more than a hundred butchered spirits stop and stare in wonder (43–54). Mohammed then warns Fra Dolcino, a leader of a Christian sect seeking apostolic simplicity, to supply himself against the papal siege that will force his surrender and lead to his death at the stake (55–63). Among the astonished, with his throat punctured, an ear severed, and his nose hacked off, is Pier da Medicina, who would also warn the Fanese nobles Guido and Angiolello of Malatestino’s plot to assassinate them in order to seize the rule of their city (64–90). He pulls apart the mouth of Gaius Curio, who spurred Caesar to cross the Rubicon and unleash a civil war, in order to expose to the Pilgrim the tongue cleft in his throat (91–102). Then Mosca de’ Lamberti, who counseled the murder of Buondelmonte, thus igniting the Guelph and Ghibelline strife in Florence, raises his handless, bleeding stumps, spattering his face, and is sure of being remembered (103–111). Finally, the decapitated Bertran de Born, who set Prince Henry against his father, Henry II of England, comes carrying his sundered head like a lantern, raising it as a supreme example of the contrapasso, which decrees just retribution for all the sinners of Hell (112–142).
1 Oh who, although he speak with words unbound[430]
And narrate many times, could tell the tale
Of blood and wounds which now I saw abound?
4 For every tongue most certainly would fail,
Since speech and memory have not the ken
To comprehend a thing on such a scale.
7 Were all the people gathered up again
Who in Apulia’s fateful land before[431]
Bewailed the blood once shed by Trojan men,[432]
10 And who had perished in the lengthy war
That made such piles of spoils from rings of foes
(As Livy writes in his unerring lore),[433]
13 Along with those who felt the painful blows
When battle with Robert Guiscard was done,[434]
And all the rest whose heaped-up bones repose
16 At Ceperan’, where each Apulian son[435]
Proved false, and there at Tagliacozzo too,
Where with no weapons old Alardo won;[436]
19 And then, were one to show his limb pierced through,
One his cut off, such foulness could afford
No equal to the ninth abyss’s view![437]
22 No cask through loss of cant or middle-board
Could gape as wide as one I saw there flung,
Who from the chin to where wind breaks was gored.
25 Between his legs his viscera were hung;
The pluck and sordid sack appeared outside,
Which makes all that we swallow turn to dung.
28 While watching him, I stood quite occupied.
He saw me, then his hands tore bosom’s skin;
“So there, look how I split myself!” he cried.
31 “And see how maimed Mohammed has just been![438]
Before me, weeping, see Alí depart,[439]
Whose face is cleft from forelock unto chin.
34 All others whom you see here in this part
Sowed scandal when alive and schism’s seed,
And for this reason thus are cleft apart.
37 A devil from behind with cruel deed
Adorns us so, as each one from this train
Is put again beneath the sword to bleed
40 Once we have circled round this road of pain;
For all the wounds we bear will close once more
Before we go again up to that bane.
43 But who is musing on the ridge’s floor,
Perhaps to slow the penalty they set
In judging accusations made before?”
46 My Master said: “Death has not reached him yet,
Nor is he brought by guilt to torment due;
But since I’m dead, and so that he may get
49 The full experience, I lead him through
All Hell below and go from lot to lot;
This is as true as that I speak to you.”
52 More than a hundred heard him on that spot
And stopped within the ditch to look my way,
And in their marvel torment was forgot.
55 “O you who soon may see a sunny ray,
If he’d not follow quickly in my train,
Tell Fra Dolcino he must put away[440]
58 Sufficient food lest with the winter’s strain
He grant the Novarese a vict’ry they
Could otherwise not easily attain.”
61 With one heel raised, as if to bound away,
Mohammed spoke such words to me as those
Then set it on the ground and went his way.
64 Another with a punctured throat there goes,[441]
Who has no more than one ear of the pair,
And who up to his brows has lost his nose.
67 In marvel with the rest he stopped to stare
And said, as for the other souls he cleaved
His windpipe, which was bloodred everywhere:
70 “O you whom guilt damns not, I have perceived
You up above on Latin soil, I know[442]—
Unless too great a semblance has deceived
73 Me here. Recall da Medicina’s woe
Should you return to see the gentle plain
That from Vercelli slopes to Marcabò.[443]
76 And make it known to Fano’s finest twain,
That Angiolell’, and Guido too, will be[444]
(Unless the foresight that we have is vain)
79 Both cast out from their vessel on the sea
And drowned near La Cattólica by guile
A ruthless tyrant works in treachery.
82 Between far Cyprus and Majorca’s isle[445]
Old Neptune never saw such outrage smite[446]
From Argive sailors or from pirate wile.[447]
85 The traitor who through but one eye sees light[448]
Controls that land, and one down in this vale
With me must wish he’d fasted from its sight.[449]
88 He’ll call them to a parley, but avail
Himself of it so that they need not care
For vows or prayers to calm Focara’s gale.”[450]
91 I said to him: “Please show me and declare
That one whom such a bitter sight would pique,
If news of you above you’d have me bear.”
94 At that he put his hand upon the cheek
Of his companion, pulled his mouth apart,
And cried: “This one is he, who cannot speak.
97 This outcast quenched the doubt in Caesar’s heart,
Affirming that, if we’re prepared, then we
Would suffer harm by putting off the start.”
100 Oh, how aghast that one appeared to me,
Who had his tongue within his throat all cleft,
That Curïo, who spoke so daringly![451]
103 Through murky air a soul who was bereft
Of both his hands raised up his stumps until
His face was stained with drops of blood they left.
106 “You also will remember Mosca still,”[452]
He cried, “who said, ‘Alas! What’s done has had
Its end,’ which Tuscans found a seed of ill.”
109 “And death to your own stock,” I had to add,[453]
Because of which, while heaping woe on woe,
He went his way like one distressed and mad.
112 But I remained to watch the troops below
And saw a thing that I would fear for sure
To tell alone without more proof to show,
115 Except my conscience renders me secure,
That good companion buoying up a man
Beneath the breastplate of his feeling pure.
118 I surely saw, and still it seems I can,
A headless trunk that walked with just the tread
The others used among that sorry clan.
121 And by the hair it held its severed head,
Which in its hand just like a lantern swayed;
And when it looked at us, “Ah me!” it said.
124 Thus of itself a lamp for it was made,
And they were two in one and one in two—
How that can be, He fathoms who so bade.
127 When just below the bridge it stood in view,
It raised its arm up with its head on high
To bring more near to us its words of rue:
130 “My grievous penalty you now espy,
Who, breathing, go to watch the dead here slung;
See, no one has a pain as great as I!
133 Should news of me be carried on your tongue,
Know that I am Bertran de Born, the one[454]
Who gave ill counsel to a king still young.
136 I turned to foes a father and his son;
Yet by Ahithophel’s wrong goads no more
With David and with Absalom was done.[455]
139 Because I parted those so joined before,
My brain I carry parted from its source
Inside this trunk—alas!—for evermore.
142 Observe in me the counterpoise in force.”[456]