Inferno: Canto Xx
INFERNO: CANTO XX
I must try to find words
In order to best describe the new torments I see
As I have done with all the others, from the beginning.
By now, I have become accustomed
To looking down into the circles. The floor of this one
Was bathed with tears of agony;
And the people I saw in the circular valley,
Were silent and weeping, coming at a pace
Which other processions in this world assume.
As I looked closer at them,
Each one seemed to be distorted
From the chin to the beginning of the chest;
For towards the back their faces were turned,
And so backward they were forced to advance,
Because the ability to look forward was taken from them.
Maybe by violence caused by palsy
Someone could be turned around this way;
But I never saw it, nor believe it can be done.
If God allows you, Reader, to gather fruit
From this reading, think for yourself
How I could ever keep my eyes from crying,
When I saw people like myself distorted this way,
The weeping from their eyes flowed along the fissure
Of their back and bathed their backsides.
Truly I wept, leaning upon a peak
Of the hard crag, so that my Escort said
To me: "Are you, too, like the other fools?
Here pity lives when it should be dead;
Who is more evil than he
Who feels compassion at the ultimate doom?
Lift up your head, and see who
Opened the earth before the Thebans' eyes;
When they all cried: 'Where are your rushing to,
Amphiaraus? Why do you leave the war?'
And he continued to run and to fall
As far as Minos, who catches everyone.
See, he has turned his back into his chest!
Because he wished to see so far ahead of him
That he now looks behind, and goes his way backward:
And there is Tiresias, who changed his gender,
From a male to a female,
And all of his parts were transformed;
And afterwards, he was forced to strike again
The two entangled snakes with his rod,
Before he could regain his manly parts.
There is Aruns, who backs against the other's belly,
Who in the hills of Luni, where the Carrarese work
And lived beneath,
In a cavern in the white marble
Had his house; so that he could behold the stars
And sea, and the view would not be cut off from him.
And she there, who is covering up her breasts,
Which you cannot see, with her loosened tresses,
That, turned backwards, cover her front parts,
Is Manto, who traveled through many lands,
Afterwards stopping where I was born;
Now I will tell you a little about her.
After her father had departed from life,
And the city of Bacchus had become enslaved,
For a long time, she wandered through the world.
Above beautiful Italy lies a lake
At the Alp's foot that shuts in Germany
Over Tyrol, and is called Benaco.
And it is filled by a thousand springs, I think, maybe more,
Between Garda and Val Camonica,
With water that grows stagnant in that lake.
Midway is a place where the Trentine Pastor,
Of Brescia, and the Veronese
Might give his blessing, if he passed that way.
Peschiera, the fortress fair and strong, sits
To protect from the Brescians and the Bergamasks,
Where the bank is at its lowest.
There is where the excess water flows
When Benaco cannot hold any more,
And so a river flows down through the green pastures.
As soon as the water begins to run,
It is no longer called Benaco, but Mincio,
As far as Governo, where it flows into the Po.
Before too long, it finds a plain
In which it spreads itself, and makes it marshy,
And often in summer it brings sickness.
Passing that way the pitiless virgin land
In the middle of the plain described,
Lays untilled and naked of inhabitants;
There to escape all human encounters,
She with her servants stayed, to practice her arts
And to live. There, she left her empty body.
After that, the men, who were scattered around,
Gathered in that place, which was made strong
By the lagoon it had on every side;
They built their city over those dead bones,
And, they called it Mantua, after she who first
Selected the place, without any other sign.
Its people were more crowded once they were inside,
Before the stupidity of Casalodi
Who was deceived by Pinamonte.
Therefore I caution you, if ever you hear
That my city was born otherwise,
Do not let the lies conceal the truth."
And I said: "Master, your words are certain to me,
And have my faith, so that to me,
The words of others would be worthless.
But tell me of the people who are passing us now,
If you see anyone who is note-worthy,
For my mind reverts back to that."
Then he said to me: "He who thrusts his beard
Upon his massive shoulders was a soothsayer,
At the time when there were no more males in Greece,
So that there were even few remaining in the cradle,
He with Calchas gave the command,
In Aulis, to launch the fleet.
His name was Eryphylus, and I told his story in
My lofty Tragedy in one place or other;
But you already know that, you have read the entire piece.
The next, who is so slender in the legs,
Was Michael Scott, who, through a variety
Of magical illusions, knew the game.
There is Guido Bonatti, and Asdente,
Who now wishes he had stuck to his leather and his thread,
But it is too late for him to repent.
See the wretched ones, who left the needle,
The spool and the rock, and made themselves fortune-tellers;
They brought their magic spells with herbs and images.
But come now, for Cain and the thorns, confine
Both of the hemispheres, and under Seville
Touches the ocean waves,
Last night the moon was already full;
You should remember well that it helped you
From time to time when you were within the deep forest."
Thus he spoke to me, and we walked on.