Canto XXXII
CANTO XXXII
The Poet fears that he may not find words harsh and grating enough to depict the depths of Hell and invokes the Muses to aid him in describing those wretched souls, for whom it would be better to have been brute beasts incapable of sin (1–15). As Dante is still staring up at the giant, a voice warns him not to trip on the heads of sinners immersed up to the neck in a lake of ice thicker than that of the Danube or the Don in winter, so thick, in fact, that a mountain falling upon it would not even produce a crack. Their frozen bodies are livid, their faces bent down to avoid recognition, their teeth clacking like a stork’s, and their eyes gushing with gelid tears (16–39). When two spirits whom the ice has clamped together are asked their names, they lift their faces, causing their welled-up tears to freeze solid in their eye sockets, and butt their heads in anger like goats. Nearby, with his chin down and his ears snapped off by the cold, Camiscione de’ Pazzi betrays them as Alberto degli Alberti’s sons, who had killed each other disputing an inheritance. He goes on to name several others among a thousand purple faces in Caïna, the first ring of the ninth circle, reserved for traitors to kindred (40–72). Continuing towards the central pit, the Traveler inadvertently kicks one of the erect faces in Antenora, the second ring, destined for traitors to country and party. The injured shade assumes the offense is further vengeance for Montaperti, the battle at which the Florentine Guelphs were soundly defeated (73–96). Yanking a handful of hair from his scalp, Dante tries to force the recalcitrant shade to reveal himself. Another spirit, irritated by the squabble, exposes him as Bocca degli Abati, the one who chopped off the standard-bearer’s hand, which sent the Guelph forces into a panic. The traitor then reveals his identifier to be Buoso da Duera, who broke faith with King Manfred, making him vulnerable to Charles d’Anjou, and continues with the names of still more (97–123). On leaving them, the Wanderer sees two spirits frozen in one hole, the first gnawing the second at the base of the skull as Tydeus did to the slain Menalippus. Dante offers to help, if the gruesome vengeance is just, by making the offense known on earth (124–139).
1 If I had harsh and grating rhymes to say
What would be fitting for that dismal pit
On which all other rocks converge and weigh,
4 I’d squeeze the juice of my conceiving wit
More fully then; but since I’m not so wise,
In fear I bring myself to speak of it.
7 For it is not a sporting enterprise
To paint the depths of all the universe,
Nor for a tongue with Mama-Papa-cries.
10 But may those ladies come to aid my verse
Who helped Amphíon build Thebes’ walls so steep,[496]
That fact and story may not be diverse.
13 O crowd ill-born beyond all others, deep
Within this place of which it’s hard to tell,
Far better had you here been goats or sheep!
16 When we were down inside the darksome well
Beneath the giant’s feet, quite far below,
And while on that high wall my gaze still fell,
19 I heard it said: “Be careful how you go:
Walk so that with your soles you may not tread
The skulls of weary brothers here in woe.”
22 At this I turned around and saw ahead
A lake beneath my feet; with frost thereon[497]
It seemed, not water, but like glass instead.
25 In wintertime the Danube lays upon[498]
Its course in Austria no veil so thick
As there was here, and neither does the Don[499]
27 Beneath cold skies. For if Mount Tambernic[500]
Should fall there, Pietrapana too, it seems[501]
That at its edge it would not crack a lick.
31 And as, with muzzle out above the streams,
The frog sits croaking in the time of year
When gleaning fills the peasant woman’s dreams,
34 So, livid to where hues of shame appear,
Were mournful shades within the ice inurned,
Whose clacking teeth made storklike notes to hear.
37 And every sinner kept his face downturned;
Their mouths bear witness to the coldness there
As by their eyes the sorry heart’s discerned.
40 When I had looked a little everywhere,
I turned down towards my feet and saw two pressed
Together so their heads had tangled hair.
43 “Do tell,” I said, “you clinging chest to chest,
Who might you be?” They bent their necks, and when
Each one had lifted up a face distressed,
46 Their eyes, which but inside were wet till then,
Gushed at the lids until the cold had blocked
The tears between them, sealing them again.
49 No clamp has ever yet so strongly locked
Two boards together; now they butted head
To head like goats, for such an anger rocked
52 Those two. Another had his ears both shed
From cold, whose face still kept a sunken pose;
“Why do you gaze so long at us?” he said.
55 “If you are bent on knowing both of those,
Their father, Albert, owned as well as they
The valley down through which Bisenzo flows.[502]
58 One body bore them both; and though you may
Search all Caïna, you will find no shade[503]
So worthy to be fixed in ice this way:
61 Not him of whom one blow by Arthur’s blade[504]
Pierced breast and shadow; nor Focaccia, no;[505]
Nor that one whose obstructing head is laid
64 So that beyond him there my sight can’t go.
Once Sassol Mascheroni was his name;[506]
If you are Tuscan, he is one you know.
67 And lest you make me further thus declaim,
Know Camiscion de’ Pazzi once was I,[507]
Who wait for Carlin to excuse my blame.”[508]
70 A thousand purple faces I could spy
Made thus by cold; I shudder still from these,
And always shall, when frozen fords are nigh.
73 And walking towards the center to which flees[509]
All gravity to gather in one place,
Still shivering in that eternal freeze,
76 If by some will, or fate, or fortune’s grace,
I do not know, but as I passed heads by,
I struck my foot quite hard against a face.
79 “Why trample me?” he railed with tear-filled eye;[510]
“If you’ve not come for greater vengeance still
For Montaperti, why molest me, why?”
82 “O Master, wait for me right here until
I solve my doubt,” I prayed, “about his woe,
Then you shall make me hasten as you will.”
85 My Guide stood fast; I asked him, even though
He kept on cursing me quite bitterly:
“Just who are you, rebuking others so?”
88 “Nay, who through Antenora,” answered he,[511]
“Goes smiting other cheeks so that the same,
Were you alive, would be too much for me?”
91 “I am alive, and should you ask for fame,”
Was my reply, “it might be worth a lot
To you, if with the rest I note your name.”
94 He said: “An opposite desire I’ve got.
So give me no more grief, but go instead;
You don’t know how to flatter in this spot!”
97 At that I took him by the scalp and said:
“You must reveal your name, or else dispose
Yourself to have no hair upon your head!”
100 And he: “So strip me bald, I won’t disclose
Who I might be nor show it; I don’t care
If you should deal my head a thousand blows.”
103 My hand, which had been winding up his hair,
Now yanked away from him a tuft or two,
As he was barking with a downward stare,
106 When “Bocca,” someone cried, “what’s wrong with you?
Was not the sound of jaws enough before?
What devil has you? Must you bark then too?”
109 “And now,” I said, “I’ll have you speak no more,
O traitor damned; to shame you further still,
I soon shall bring true news of you ashore.”
112 “Be off,” he said, “and tell them what you will;
But don’t be silent if you leave our hold
About the one whose tongue was quick and shrill.
115 For he’s lamenting here the Frenchmen’s gold;
‘I saw him of Duëra,’ you’ll admit,[512]
‘Down there where all the sinners are kept cold.’
118 If they should ask who else was in that pit,
You’ve him from Becchería at your side,[513]
The very one whose gullet Florence slit.
121 I think that Gianni Soldanier’ is spied[514]
With Ganelon, and Tibbald, up ahead,[515]
Who opened slumbering Faenza wide.”
124 As soon as we had left that spirit’s bed,
I saw two frozen in one hole; they’d lain
So that the one had capped the other’s head.
127 Just as the hungry chew their loaves of grain,
The top one bit the bottom one, I saw,
Right where the spinal marrow joins the brain.
130 As Tydeus in rage once came to gnaw
The temples of slain Menalippus, so[516]
Here skull and other parts were eaten raw.
133 “O you who by this brutal token show
Your hate for him you’re eating, tell me why,”
I said to him, “on this condition, though:
136 If you have reason to complain, then I,
On knowing who you are and that one’s sin,
Shall yet repay you in the world up high,
139 Unless this tongue that speaks dries up within.”