Inferno: Canto Xxxii
INFERNO: CANTO XXXII
If I ever thought of words that were rough and crude
Enough to describe this dismal hole
Which held the weight of the rest of Hell,
I would squeeze them from my brain;
But, because I could not possibly define it completely,
I find it difficult to begin at all;
It is not something to be taken lightly;
You cannot use small words or baby talk when
Describing the bottom of the entire universe.
Hopefully, those Heavenly Ladies can help me find the words,
As they helped Amphion in surrounding Thebes,
That can make you fully comprehend what I saw.
Down here are the worst of the ill-begotten rabble,
Residing in a place that is so harsh, that their lives would
Have been better for them if they were sheep or goats!
We continued down into the deep, dark well,
Beneath the giant's feet, but lower down.
I was scanning the high walls around us
When I heard someone say to me: "Watch where you are stepping!
Be careful not to trample
The heads of the tired, miserable brothers!"
I quickly looked around and saw that I was standing
On a lake that, because of the frost,
Looked like glass instead of water.
There was never a veil of ice this thick,
Even in winter on the Danube in Austria,
Nor beneath the frigid sky of the Don,
As there was here on this lake; so that if Tambernich
Had fallen on it, or Pietrapana,
Even at the edge, it would not have made even a creak.
And as a frog, in order to croak, places himself
With his muzzle out of water near harvest time,
When the peasant-girls sit dreaming,
So these miserable souls sank into the ice,
Buried up to their necks,
With their teeth chattering loudly.
Each one of them had his head bent down;
Their mouths resounded with the depths of the coldness,
But their eyes portrayed the sadness in their hearts.
I looked around, trying to take in the scene before me,
And then I looked down and saw two souls so close,
That the hair on their heads was mingled together.
"You two, who are pressed so close together,"
I said, "Who are you?" They bent their heads towards me
And when they had lifted up their faces,
Their eyes, which at first were only moist,
Suddenly gushed over, and the frost congealed
Their tears between them, and locked them up again.
A clamp never bound together two pieces of wood
So tightly; and then they, like two goats,
Butted their heads together, as their wrath overcame them.
And another soul, who had lost his ears because of the cold,
With his head still facing down said to me:
"Why do you stand there looking at us?
If you want to know who these two are,
The valley where the Bisenzio descends
Belonged to them and to their father Albert.
They came from one body, and if you search through
All of Caina, you will not find a soul
More worthy to be fixed in this ice;
Not he whose body and spirit were taken
In a single blow by Arthur's hand;
Not Focaccia; not this one here who blocks my view
With his head so that I can't see in front of me,
Who bore the name of Sassol Mascheroni;
You know who he was, if you are indeed a Tuscan.
And to save you from asking me,
I will tell you that I was Camicion de' Pazzi,
And I wait for Carlino to exonerate me."
Then I saw a thousand faces, made
Purple with cold and it suddenly made me shudder,
Which I still do when I come upon a frozen pond.
And while we were moving towards the middle,
Where everything converges together,
I was shivering in the eternal darkness.
Whether it was will, or destiny, or chance,
I do not know; but in walking among the heads
I struck one of them in the face with my foot.
Weeping he growled at me: "Why do you trample on me?
Unless you have come to increase the vengeance
Of Montaperti, why did you kick me?"
And I said: "Master, please wait here for me,
I need to clear something up with this one;
Then I will go as fast as you want me to."
The Leader stopped; and I said to the one
Who was still blaspheming vehemently:
"Who are you, that you feel you must insult others?"
And he replied, "Who are you that goes through Antenora kicking
Other people's heads? If you were living
Would you have kicked me so hard?"
"I am living" was my response,
"And if you want me to spread your fame,
You would do well to give me your name for my notes."
And he said to me: "Fame is the last thing I would want;
Get out of here, and don't give me any more trouble;
You obviously don't know how to flatter someone down here."
Then I seized him by the scalp, and said:
"Tell me your name, or I will rip out your hair."
Then he said to me:
"Go ahead and rip out my hair,
I will not tell you who I am, nor show you my face,
Even if you kicked my head a thousand times."
I had his hair already twisted in my hand,
And I pulled out a patch of it.
He screamed but held his eyes firmly downward,
When another spirit cried: "What is bothering you now, Bocca?
Isn't it enough to clatter with your teeth,
So now you decide to scream? What devil has overcome you?"
"Now," I said, "I don't care if you speak or not,
You accursed traitor; for I will report your shame
When I spread the news of finding you here."
"Begone," he screamed, "And say whatever you want to,
But when you are spreading your news, don't be silent
About the one who just spoke to you;
He weeps here from the silver he got from the French;
You can tell everyone that the one from Duera
Is punished here where the traitors are stuck in the ice.
If you want to know who else is here,
The one beside you is the traitor of Beccaria,
Who lost his head in Florence;
Gianni del Soldanier, I think, may be
Over there with Ganellon, and Tebaldello
Who opened Faenza to their enemies when the people slept."
I left him, and joined my guide. As we walked
I saw two spirits frozen in one hole,
So that one head was a hood for the other;
And as bread is devoured through hunger,
The uppermost one had his teeth sunk into the neck
Of the other where the brain is connected to the back.
In the same way that Tydeus gnawed
On the temples of Menalippus in disdain,
This one gnawed on the skull of the other.
"You, who are acting like a beast and showing
Your hatred against him who you are eating,
Tell me why you are doing this," I said,
"And I will promise you, that if you have a rightful complaint Against him, by knowing who you are, and his transgression,
When I return to the world above, I will repay you,
For as long as I am still able to speak."