INFERNO XXIV
INFERNO XXIV
In that season of the youthful year →
when the sun cools his locks beneath Aquarius
3 and the dark already nears but half the day,
and when the hoarfrost copies out upon the fields
the very image of her snowy sister—
6 although her pen-point is not sharp for long—
the peasant, short of fodder, rises,
looks out, and sees the countryside
9 turned white, at which he slaps his thigh,
goes back indoors, grumbling here and there
like a wretch who knows not what to do,
12 then goes outside again and is restored to hope,
seeing that the world has changed its face
in that brief time, and now picks up his crook
15 and drives his sheep to pasture.
Thus the master caused me to lose heart
when I saw how troubled was his brow
18 and just as quickly came the poultice to the wound,
for no sooner had we reached the broken bridge
than he turned to me with that gentle glance
21 I first saw at the mountain’s foot.
He looked with care upon the ruin, →
took thought, chose a plan of action,
24 then opened out his arms and took me in them.
And like one who reckons as he works,
always planning for what comes next,
27 thus, while raising me to one boulder’s peak,
he searched for yet another crag
and said: ‘Take hold of that one next
30 but test it first to see if it will bear your weight.’
This was no climb for people wearing leaden cloaks. →
Though he was weightless and I was being pushed, →
33 how hard a climb it was from one crag to the other!
Were it not that on this side of the dike
the slope was shorter—I cannot speak for him—
36 I would have given up.
But since all Malebolge inclines →
down to the mouth of the lowest pit,
39 it follows that each valley is constructed
with one side higher than the other.
At last we made it to the point
42 where the outermost stone had broken off.
And there I felt my lungs so sucked of breath
that I could go no farther,
45 but I sat down as quickly as I could.
‘Now must you cast off sloth,’ my master said.
‘Sitting on feather cushions or stretched out
48 under comforters, no one comes to fame.
‘Without fame, he who spends his time on earth →
leaves only such a mark upon the world
51 as smoke does on the air or foam on water.
‘Get to your feet! Conquer this laboring breath
with strength of mind, which wins the battle
54 if not dragged down by body’s weight.
‘There is a longer stair that must be climbed.
It’s not enough to leave these souls behind.
57 If you take my meaning, let it be of use.’
At that I rose, pretending to more breath →
than I had in me, and said:
60 ‘Go on then, for I am strong and resolute.’
We labored up a ridge,
rugged, narrow, difficult,
63 and steeper far than was the last.
Not to seem so spent, I talked as I climbed up.
Then, from the next ditch, came a voice →
66 that seemed unfit for forming words.
I could not make out what it said, →
though I was at the crown that arches over,
69 but the one who spoke seemed to be in motion.
Hard as I strained to see, it was too dark
for living eyes to plumb the depths.
72 And so I said: ‘Master, take your way
‘to the next ledge where we can leave this bridge.
From here I make out nothing with my ears
75 nor with my eyes see anything down there.’
‘I give no other answer than to take you,’
he said, ‘for a just request
78 should be followed by the act, in silence.’
We left the bridge at the abutment →
where it comes to rest on that eighth bank.
81 From there the contents of the ditch came into view.
In it I saw a dreadful swarm of serpents, →
of so strange a kind that even now
84 when I remember them it chills my blood.
Let Libya with all her sands no longer boast, →
for though she fosters chelydri, jaculi,
87 phareae, cenchres, and amphisbaena,
she never reared so many venomous pests, →
nor so appalling—not with all of Ethiopia
90 and the lands that lie along the Red Sea coast.
Amid this fearsome and most awful plenty, →
people, naked and in terror, were running
93 without hope of refuge or of heliotrope.
Their hands were tied behind their backs with snakes
that thrust their heads and tails between the legs
96 and joined, knotting themselves in front.
And behold, one of these souls was near our ridge →
when a serpent launched and pierced him through →
99 right where the neck and shoulders join.
Never has ‘o’ nor even ‘i’ been writ so quick →
as he caught fire and burned, turned,
102 in the very act of falling, into ashes.
And as he lay unmade upon the ground,
the dust regathered of its own accord
105 and suddenly he was himself again.
Just, as is attested by great sages,
the phoenix perishes and is reborn →
108 when it approaches its five-hundredth year—
lifelong it feeds on neither grain nor grasses,
but thrives on drops of frankincense and cardamom,
111 while nard and myrrh make up its winding sheet—
and just as one who faints, and knows not why—
whether possessed by devils that pull him down
114 or seized by the sickness that causes men to fall—
rises to his feet, and gazes round,
wholly bewildered by the breathless anguish
117 he has undergone, and as he looks, he sighs,
such did that sinner seem when he had risen.
O how stern it is, the power of God, →
120 hurling such blows as it takes vengeance!
When my leader asked him who he was:
‘From Tuscany I rained down,’ was his answer, →
123 ‘not long ago, into this savage gorge.
‘I loved the life of beasts and not of men,
just like the mule I was. I am Vanni Fucci,
126 animal. Pistoia was my fitting den.’
And I to my leader: ‘Tell him not to slip away, →
then ask what sin has thrust him to this depth,
129 for I knew him as a man of blood and rages.’
And the sinner, listening, did not dissemble,
but set his mind and eyes on me,
132 then colored with a wrathful shame →
and said: ‘For you to catch me
in this misery pains me more
135 than when I was taken from the other life.
‘I can’t refuse to answer what you ask.
I am thrust so far below because I stole
138 the lovely ornaments from the sacristy
‘and the blame was wrongly laid upon another.
But, so you take no joy in seeing me this low, →
141 if ever you escape from these dark regions,
‘open your ears to prophecy and hear:
First, Pistoia strips herself of Blacks, →
144 then Florence changes families and fashions.
‘Next Mars draws up a bolt from Val di Magra,
engulfed by torn and threatening clouds,
147 and, with violent and stinging storms,
’on Campo Piceno the battle shall be joined.
The headlong bolt shall rend the clouds,
striking and wounding every White.