Inferno: Canto Xxxiv
INFERNO: CANTO XXXIV
"'Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni'
The king of Hell is in front of us,"
My Master said, "See if you can find him."
Like the air, when it is filled with a heavy fog,
Or when the light of day is fading into night,
And a windmill is turning slowly in the distance,
I thought I saw a building like this ahead of us;
And, to protect myself from the wind, I slid behind
My Guide, because there was no place else to hide.
There I was, and I still shake even as I write it,
With the souls buried in the ice,
Each of them looking like straws stuck into glass.
Some were lying down, others were standing erect,
Some showing their heads, and others only showing their feet;
Another, was bent over, his head bowed down to his feet.
After we had walked a little further,
My Master was happy to point out to me
The creature who had once been beautiful,
He came to a stop and said to me:
"This is the place known as Dis, And it is here
That you must show more courage than ever before."
Suddenly, I became frozen and powerless.
Don't ask me why, I would not be able to explain it,
Because language does not have words that would be sufficient.
I did not die, but nor was I alive;
Think for yourself, if you can imagine it,
What I became, being deprived of both life and death.
The Emperor of this miserable kingdom
From the middle of his chest downward was buried in ice;
And I would be closer to the height of a giant
Than a giant would be if compared to the length of his arms;
Just think of how huge his entire body must be,
If his arms alone are longer than a giant is tall.
Where he was once beautiful, he had become equally ugly,
And he lifted up his face towards the Heavens,
Which poured down the misery and grief on him.
Then, I saw, to my great surprise,
That he had three faces on his head!
The one in front was bright red in color;
The two other faces were joined with the first
Above the middle part of each shoulder,
And they were all joined together at the top of the head;
The right one was a mixture of white and yellow;
The left one was dark brown, similar in color to the people
Who come from where the Nile falls to the valley.
Underneath each head, there were two mighty wings,
As huge as you would expect from such a giant a bird;
I have never seen sails of a ship that were this large.
The wings did not have feathers, but were more like a bat,
And he was flapping them,
So that three winds were produced from them.
This was how Cocytus remained completely frozen.
With all six eyes he wept, and down all three chins
Trickled the tear-drops and his bloody drool.
In each mouth his teeth were crunching
A sinner, grinding and chewing on him,
So that he could torture three of them at the same time.
To the one in front, the biting was nothing compared
To the clawing that was being done, and sometimes the spine
Would be completely stripped of skin.
"That soul up there that is suffering the most,"
The Master said, "Is Judas Iscariot;
With his head inside, he kicks his legs on the outside.
The other two, whose heads are out,
The one who hangs from the dark mouth is Brutus;
See how he writhes, but does not speak.
And the other, who still looks strong, is Cassius.
But night is almost here and it is time
For us to leave, because we have seen everything."
He motioned to me and I clasped him around the neck.
He watched intently for a good opportunity,
And when the wings were spread wide apart,
He grabbed hold of Lucifer's shaggy sides;
Pulling hand over hand, we descended down along his body
Between the thick hair and the frozen crust.
When we came to where the thigh connects to the hip
Right where the joint is located,
My Guide, while pulling hard, and short of breath,
Turned his head and looked back the way we had come.
Then he pulled the hair, and began to climb,
So that I thought we were returning to Hell.
"Hold on tight,"
The Master said, panting as though he were fatigued,
"This is the only way we can get out."
We climbed through an opening in the rocks,
And he set me down on the ledge;
Then he climbed up and joined me there.
I looked up and expected to see
Lucifer the same way I had left him;
Instead, I saw him from below, kicking his legs.
If I seem confused,
Then it is only because I didn't understand
What exactly I went through on this climb.
"Get up on your feet," the Master said,
We have a long and difficult road ahead of us,
And the sun is now high in the sky."
This was no palace corridor that we were standing in
But more like some rocky dungeon,
With an uneven floor and almost no light.
"Master, before we are out of this abyss,"
I said when I stood up,
"Can you please explain something to me;
Where is the ice? And how is Lucifer suddenly
Upside down? And how did the time go from night
To day so quickly, in just moments?"
And he said to me: "You still think that you are
Near the center of the Earth, where I grabbed
The hair of Lucifer and started our descent.
And we were, for as long as I was descending; But when
You thought I had turned around, what happened was that
We passed through the center, so everything was reversed,
And we have now come to the opposite hemisphere
On the other side, away from dry land and
Are now below the area where they sacrificed Jesus,
The man who was born and lived without sin.
You are now standing on the side of the planet
In which Judecca was formed.
Here it is morning when it is evening on the other side;
And Lucifer, who's hair we used as our stairway,
Is still fixed in the ice, and has not moved.
This is where he fell down out of heaven;
And the land that was on this side was forced to the other,
And he was covered by the sea.
All the land was moved to our hemisphere,
So what you see on this side
Is the vacant space that was left behind.
This place down here, away from Lucifer,
Reaching as far as his tomb extends,
Is not known by sight, but instead, by the sound
Of a small stream. It descends down here
Through a chasm within the stone, which it has gnawed
Away over time, and that winds around and gently falls."
The Guide and I walked along that hidden road
To return to the bright world outside;
And without stopping to rest
We climbed up, him first and me following,
Until I saw through a small, round opening
Some of the beautiful things that Heaven holds;
Then we climbed out and looked up at the stars.
THE END