Inferno Xviii
INFERNO XVIII
There is a place in Hell called Malebolge, →
fashioned entirely of iron-colored rock,
3 as is the escarpment that encircles it.
At the very center of this malignant space
there yawns a pit, extremely wide and deep.
6 I will describe its plan all in due time.
A path that circles like a belt around the base
of that high rock runs round the pit,
9 its sides descending in ten ditches.
As where concentric moats surround a castle
to guard its walls, their patterns clear
12 and governed by a meaningful design,
in such a pattern were these ditches shaped.
And, just as narrow bridges issue from the gates
15 of fortresses to reach the farthest bank,
so ridges stretched from the escarpment
down across the banks and ditches
18 into the pit at which they end and join.
Dropped from Geryon’s back, this was the place →
in which we found ourselves. The poet kept
21 to the left and I came on behind him.
To our right I saw a suffering new to me, →
new torments, and new scourgers,
24 with whom the first ditch was replete.
The sinners in its depth were naked,
those on our side of the center coming toward us,
27 the others moving with us, but with longer strides,
just as, because the throngs were vast the year →
of Jubilee, the Romans had to find a way
30 to let the people pass across the bridge,
so that all those on one side face the castle,
heading over to Saint Peter’s,
33 these, on the other, heading toward the mount.
Here and there on the dark rock above them
I watched horned demons armed with heavy scourges →
36 lashing them cruelly from behind.
Ah, how they made them pick their heels up
at the first stroke! You may be certain
39 no one waited for a second or a third.
While I went on my eye was caught
by one of them, and quickly I brought out:
42 ‘It seems to me I’ve seen that man before.’
And so I paused to make him out.
My gentle leader stopped with me,
45 and then allowed me to retrace my steps.
The scourged soul thought that he could hide
by lowering his face—to no avail.
48 I said: ‘You there, with your eyes cast down,
‘if I’m not mistaken in your features,
you’re Venèdico Caccianemico. →
51 What has brought you to such stinging torture?’
And he replied: ‘Unwillingly I tell it,
moved only by the truth of what you’ve said,
54 which brings to mind the world that once I knew.
‘It was I who urged Ghisolabella
to do the will of that marquis,
57 no matter how the foul tale goes around.
‘I’m not the only Bolognese here lamenting. →
This place is so crammed with them
60 that not so many tongues have learned to say
‘ “sipa” between the Sàvena and the Reno.
And if you’d like some confirmation,
63 bring our greedy dispositions back to mind.’
While he was speaking a demon struck him
with his lash and said: ‘Away, pimp!
66 there are no women here to trick.’ →
Then I rejoined my escort. A few steps farther
and we came upon a place
69 where a ridge jutted from the bank.
This we ascended easily and,
turning to the right upon its jagged ledge,
72 we left behind their endless circling. →
When we came to the point above the hollow →
that makes a passage for the scourged,
75 my leader said: ‘Stop, let them look at you,
‘those other ill-born souls whose faces
you have not yet seen, since we have all
78 been moving in the same direction.’
From the ancient bridge we eyed the band
advancing toward us on the other side,
81 driven with whips just like the first.
And the good master, without my asking, said:
‘See that imposing figure drawing near. →
84 He seems to shed no tears despite his pain.
‘What regal aspect he still bears!
He is Jason, who by courage and by craft →
87 deprived the men of Colchis of the ram.
‘Then he ventured to the isle of Lemnos,
after those pitiless, bold women
90 put all the males among them to their death.
‘There with signs of love and polished words
he deceived the young Hypsipyle,
93 who had herself deceived the other women.
‘There he left her, pregnant and forlorn.
Such guilt condemns him to this torment,
96 and Medea too is thus avenged.
‘With him go all who practice such deceit.
Let that be all we know of this first ditch
99 and of the ones it clenches in its jaws.’
Now we had come to where the narrow causeway →
intersects the second ridge to form
102 a buttress for another arch.
From here we heard the whimpering of people
one ditch away, snuffling with their snouts
105 and beating on themselves with their own palms.
The banks, made slimy by a sticky vapor
from below, were coated with a mould
108 offending eyes and nose.
The bottom is so deep we could see nothing
unless we climbed to the crown of the arch,
111 just where the ridge is highest.
We went up, and from there I could see,
in a ditch below, people plunged in excrement
114 that could have come from human privies.
Searching the bottom with my eyes I saw
a man, his head so smeared with shit
117 one could not tell if he were priest or layman.
He railed: ‘What whets your appetite to stare at me
more than all the others in their filth?’
120 And I answered: ‘The fact, if I remember right,
‘that once I saw you when your hair was dry—
and you are Alessio Interminei of Lucca. →
123 That’s why I eye you more than all the rest.’
Then he, beating on his pate:
‘I am immersed down here for the flattery
126 with which my tongue was never cloyed.’
And then my leader said to me: ‘Try to thrust
your face a little farther forward,
129 to get a better picture of the features
‘of that foul, disheveled wench down there,
scratching herself with her filthy nails.
132 Now she squats and now she’s standing up.
‘She is Thaïs, the whore who, when her lover asked: →
“Have I found favor with you?”
answered, “Oh, beyond all measure!”
136 And let our eyes be satisfied with that.’