Inferno: Canto Xxvi
INFERNO: CANTO XXVI
Rejoice, Florence, for you are truly great,
Your reach extends over land and sea,
And throughout Hell your name is known everywhere!
Among the thieves, I found five of your citizens,
Which brings me great shame,
And does not reflect well on your honor.
But if in the morning our dreams come true,
In the near future, you will feel
What Prato and the others crave for you.
If it happened right now, it would not be too soon;
It should have already happened, but it will happen,
Until it does, it grieves me more, the older I get.
We went our way, up along the stairs
The rocks had made, where us descended before,
Led by my Conductor and me following behind.
And we moved along the solitary path
Among the rocks and ridges of the circle,
Using both our feet and hands to move forward.
Then I felt sad, and the sorrow spread,
When I think about all that I have seen,
And I had to keep my thoughts in check, more than I wanted,
But I will not convey it unless virtue makes me;
So that if a good star, or something else,
Has brought me luck, then I will not refuse it.
As people who stay behind (as those who rest on the hill
After the sun, which lights the world
Has fallen beyond our sight,
While the firefly takes the place of the gnat)
See the glowing fires down along the valley,
Maybe down where he ploughs or makes his wine;
That is how many flames I saw
In the eighth circle, which I grew aware of
As soon as I was able to see over the edge.
And as the prophet who was devoured by bears
Saw Elijah's chariot leaving,
When his horses rose towards Heaven,
Though he could no longer see it
I was able to watch the flame ascend,
Like a little cloud climbing into the sky,
This is how the flames were moving at the bottom of the gorge.
Not one flame showed what it was consuming,
But I knew that each flame was consuming a sinner.
I stood on the bridge to see better,
And if I had not held on to a rock,
I would have fallen over the edge.
And the Leader, who watched me so intently,
Exclaimed: "The spirits are within the fires;
Each one burning in his flaming punishment."
"Master," I replied, "Though I already guessed that
This was happening, from what you have said
I am certain now, and would like to ask you
Who is in that fire, which is split
At the top, it seems to be burning like the fire
Where Eteocles was burned with his brother."
He answered me: "Within there are the tormented souls of
Ulysses and Diomed, and together
They feel the wrath of vengeance.
Within their flame, they lament
The ambush of the Trojan horse, which became the door
Where the Roman's were able to defeat Troy;
Together, they mourn the trick which still causes
Deidamia to weep for Achilles,
And they pay for the pain of taking the Palladium."
"If those within the sparks can speak,"
I said, "Master, please,
I pray to you a thousand times,
Let me wait until the horned flame comes closer;
As I would like to see it."
And he said to me:
"That is a worthy request
And therefore I will grant it;
But take heed that you do not say too much.
Let me speak, because I know what you wish to ask
And they might become upset
If they hear your accent, since they were Greeks."
The flame reached a point near us,
When my Leader seemed it appropriate,
And I finally heard him speak:
"You, who are two spirits within one fire,
While I was living,
If I deserved any praise
When I wrote the lofty verses,
Stop for a moment, and one of you tell me
Whether either of you died because of your own fault."
Then the greater of the two flames,
Began to murmur and wave itself about
Even as a flame does when it fights the wind.
Then the tip began moving to and fro
As if it were the tongue of a snake,
And it uttered in a voice saying: "When I
Had departed from Circe, who concealed me
For more than a year near Gaeta,
Before Aeneas gave it that name,
Not fondness for my son, nor reverence
For my old father, nor the due affection
Which should have made Penelope joyous,
Could overcome the desire within me,
I had to experience the world,
And the vice and virtue of mankind;
So I set sail on the open sea
With only one ship, and a small company of men
Who did not desert me.
I saw the shores as far as Spain,
As far as Morocco, and the isle of Sardinia,
And many other islands surrounded by the sea.
Me and my company were old and slow
When we arrived at that narrow passage
Where Hercules set his signals as landmarks,
So that no man should venture past them.
Behind me, on the right, I saw Seville,
And on the other I had already left Ceuta.
'Brothers, who have come through a hundred thousand
Perils,' I said, 'to reach the West,
On this inconceivable voyage
While we still retain our senses
Let us not deny ourselves the knowledge,
Of following the sun to the places no one has gone before.
Consider where you came from;
You were not made to live like brutes,
But were made for the pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.'
So eager did I make my companions for the voyage,
With this brief speech,
That I could hardly have held them back.
And having turned our stern into the morning sun,
Our oars became our wings for our mad flight,
Always sailing to our left.
We could see the stars of the Southern pole
In the night, and our stars were so low
That they did not rise above the ocean floor.
Five times rekindled and as many times quenched
As we counted the fullness of the moon,
Since we had entered into the deep pass,
When there appeared a mountain,
In the distance, and it seemed to me higher
Then any I had ever seen before.
At first, we were joyful, but it soon turned to weeping;
Because a whirlwind arose out of the new land,
And smashed into the front part of the ship.
Three times it spun her in the waters,
And on the fourth turn, it raised the stern,
And submerged the bow,
Until the sea closed in above us."