INFERNO XIII
INFERNO XIII
Nessus had not yet reached the other side →
when we made our way into a forest
3 not marked by any path.
No green leaves, but those of dusky hue— →
not a straight branch, but knotted and contorted—
6 no fruit of any kind, but poisonous thorns.
No rougher, denser thickets make a refuge
for the wild beasts that hate tilled lands
9 between the Cècina and Corneto.
Here the filthy Harpies nest, →
who drove the Trojans from the Strophades
12 with doleful prophecies of woe to come.
They have broad wings, human necks and faces,
taloned feet, and feathers on their bulging bellies.
15 Their wailing fills the eerie trees.
And my good master then began to speak:
‘Before you go in deeper you should know,
18 you are, and will be, in the second ring
‘until you reach the dreadful sand. Look well—
you will see things that, in my telling, →
21 would seem to strip my words of truth.’
Lamentations I heard on every side
but I saw no one who might be crying out
24 so that, confused, I stopped. →
I think he thought that I thought →
all these voices in among the branches
27 came from people hiding there.
And so the master said: ‘If you break off
a twig among these brambles,
30 your present thoughts will be cut short.’
Then I stretched out my hand →
and plucked a twig from a tall thorn-bush,
33 and its stem cried out: ‘Why do you break me?’
When it ran dark with blood
it cried again: ‘Why do you tear me?
36 Are you completely without pity?
‘We once were men and now are turned to thorns.
Your hand might well have been more merciful
39 had we been souls of snakes.’
As from a green log, burning at one end, →
that blisters and hisses at the other
42 with the rush of sap and air,
so from the broken splinter oozed
blood and words together, and I let drop
45 the twig and stood like one afraid.
‘Could he have believed it otherwise, →
O wounded soul,’ my sage spoke up,
48 ‘what he has seen only in my verses,
‘he would not have raised his hand against you.
But your plight, being incredible, made me
51 goad him to this deed that weighs on me.
‘Now tell him who you were, so that, by way →
of recompense, he may revive your fame
54 up in the world, where he’s permitted to return.’
And the stem said: ‘With your pleasing words →
you so allure me I cannot keep silent.
57 May it not offend if I am now enticed to speak.
‘I am the one who held both keys →
to Frederick’s heart, and I could turn them,
60 locking and unlocking, so discreetly
‘I kept his secrets safe from almost everyone.
So faithful was I to that glorious office
63 that first I lost my sleep and then my life.
‘The slut who never took her whoring eyes →
from Caesar’s household, the common bane
66 and special vice of courts,
‘inflamed all minds against me.
And they, inflamed, did so inflame Augustus →
69 that welcome honors turned to dismal woe.
‘My mind, in scornful temper, →
hoping by dying to escape from scorn,
72 made me, though just, against myself unjust.
‘By this tree’s new-sprung roots I give my oath: →
not once did I break faith
75 with my true lord, a man so worthy of honor.
‘If one of you goes back into the world,
let him restore my reputation, which, helpless,
78 lies beneath the blow that envy dealt it.’
The poet waited, then he said to me:
‘Since he is silent now do not waste time
81 but speak if you would ask him more.’
And I replied: ‘Please question him →
about the things you think I need to know.
84 For I cannot, such pity fills my heart.’
Thus he began again: ‘So that this man may,
with ready will, do as your words entreat,
87 may it please you, imprisoned spirit,
‘to tell us further how the souls are bound
inside such gnarled wood, and tell us, if you can,
90 if from such limbs one ever is set free.’
Then the tree forced out harsh breath, and soon
that wind was turned into a voice:
93 ‘My answer shall be brief.
‘When the ferocious soul deserts the body
after it has wrenched up its own roots,
96 Minos condemns it to the seventh gulch.
‘It falls into the forest, in a spot not chosen,
but flung by fortune, helter-skelter,
99 it fastens like a seed.
‘It spreads into a shoot, then a wild thicket.
The Harpies, feeding on its leaves,
102 give pain and to that pain a mouth.
‘We will come to claim our cast-off bodies
like the others. But it would not be just if we again
105 put on the flesh we robbed from our own souls.
‘Here shall we drag it, and in this dismal wood
our bodies will be hung, each one
108 upon the thorn-bush of its painful shade.’
Our attention was still fixed upon the tree, →
thinking it had more to tell us,
111 when we were startled by a noise,
as a man, when he hears
the dogs, and branches snapping,
114 knows the boar and hunters near.
Now, from the left, two souls came running,
naked and torn, and so intent on flight
117 they broke straight through the tangled thicket.
The one in front cried: ‘Come, come quickly, death!’
And the other, who thought his own pace slow:
120 ‘Lano, your legs were not so nimble
‘at the tournament near the Toppo.’
Then, almost out of breath, he pressed himself
123 into a single tangle with a bush.
Behind them now the woods were thick
with bitches, black and ravenous and swift
126 as hounds loosed from the leash.
On him who had hidden in the tangle
they set their teeth, tore him to pieces,
129 and carried off those miserable limbs.
And then my leader took me by the hand. →
He led me to the bush,
132 which wept in vain lament from bleeding wounds.
‘O Jacopo da Sant’ Andrea,’ it said,
‘what use was it to make a screen of me?
135 Why must I suffer for your guilty life?’
When the master stopped beside it, he said:
‘Who were you, that through so many wounds
138 pour out with blood your doleful words?’
And he to us: ‘O souls who have arrived →
to see the shameless carnage
141 that has torn from me my leaves,
‘gather them here at the foot of this wretched bush.
I was of the city that traded patrons—
144 Mars for John the Baptist. On that account
‘Mars with his craft will make her grieve forever.
And were it not that at the crossing of the Arno
147 some vestige of him still remains,
‘those citizens who afterwards rebuilt it
upon the ashes that Attila left behind
would have done their work in vain.
151 I made my house into my gallows.’