INFERNO XXX
INFERNO XXX
Once when Juno, furious with Semele, →
vented her rage against the house of Thebes,
3 as she had done on more than one occasion,
Athamas went so raving mad that when he saw
his wife come near with both their children,
6 holding one on this arm, one on that,
he shouted: “Let’s spread the nets so I can trap
the lioness with her cubs as they go past!”
9 Then he reached out and with pitiless claws
he seized the one who was called Learchus,
whirled him round and dashed him on a rock.
12 At that she drowned herself with her other burden.
And when Fortune had subdued the haughty, →
all-daring spirit of the Trojans,
15 so that both king and kingdom were brought low,
Hecuba—wretched, sorrowing, a captive—
when she saw Polyxena slaughtered and,
18 grieving woman, when she saw
Polydorus lying dead upon the shore,
went mad and started barking like a dog,
21 so greatly had her grief deranged her mind.
But no Theban crazed with rage— →
or Trojan—did ever seem as cruel
24 in rending beasts, much less human parts,
as did two pallid, naked shades I saw,
snapping their jaws as they rushed up
27 like swine charging from an opened sty.
The one came at Capocchio, set its tusks →
into his neck, then dragged him
30 so his belly scraped the rock-hard ground.
And the Aretine, who stood there, trembling,
said to me: ‘That demon’s Gianni Schicchi,
33 and in his rabid rage he mauls the others.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘so may that other not fix
its teeth in you, be kind enough to tell me
36 just who it is before it runs away.’
And he answered: ‘That is the ancient soul →
of wicked Myrrha, who became enamored
39 of her father with more than lawful love.
‘She contrived to sin with him
by taking on another person’s shape,
42 as did that other, eager to decamp, →
‘to gain the queen mule of the herd,
take on the shape of Buoso Donati,
45 drawing up a will and giving it due form.’
When those two frenzied shades, on whom →
I’d fixed my eyes, had hurried off,
48 I turned to look at others born for sorrow.
One I saw, fashioned like a lute— →
had he been sundered at the groin
51 from the joining where a man goes forked.
The heavy dropsy, which afflicts the body →
with its ill-digesting humor
54 so that the face and belly do not match,
forced his lips to draw apart
as a person parched with hectic fever curls
57 one lip to his chin and twists the other up.
‘O you who go unpunished here—I know not why— →
through this world of misery,’
60 he said, ‘behold and then consider
‘the suffering of Master Adam.
Alive, I had in plenty all I wanted.
63 And now I crave a single drop of water!
‘The streams that, in the Casentino, →
run down along green hillsides to the Arno,
66 keeping their channels cool and moist,
‘flow before my eyes forever, and not in vain,
because their image makes me thirst still more
69 than does the malady that wastes my features.
‘The rigid justice that torments me
employs the landscape where I sinned
72 to make my sighs come faster.
‘In those parts lies Romena, where I forged
the coinage stamped with John the Baptist.
75 For that I left my body burned above.
‘If I could only see down here the wretched souls →
of Guido, Alessandro, or their brother,
78 I’d not give up that sight for Fonte Branda.
‘One of them is here with us already, →
if the furious shades who move about don’t lie.
81 What good is that to me whose limbs are bound?
‘If I were only light enough to budge →
a single inch each hundred years,
84 I would by now have started on my way
‘to seek him out in this pit’s bloated shapes,
even though it runs eleven miles around
87 and spreads not less than half a mile across.
‘It is their fault that I have such companions, →
for it was they who made me strike the florins
90 that held three carats’ worth of dross.’
And I to him: ‘Who are these two wretches
who steam as wet hands do in winter
93 and lie so very near you on your right?’
‘I found them when I rained into this trough,’
he said, ‘and even then they did not move about,
96 nor do I think they will for all eternity.
‘One is the woman who lied accusing Joseph, →
the other is false Sinon, the lying Greek from Troy.
99 Putrid fever makes them reek with such a stench.’
And one of them, who took offense, perhaps →
at being named so vilely, hit him
102 with a fist right on his rigid paunch.
It boomed out like a drum. Then Master Adam,
whose arm seemed just as sturdy,
105 used it, striking Sinon in the face,
saying: ‘Although I cannot move about
because my legs are heavy,
108 my arm is loose enough for such a task.’
To which the other answered: ‘When they put you
to the fire, your arm was not so nimble,
111 though it was quick enough when you were coining.’
And the dropsied one: ‘Well, that is true,
but you were hardly such a truthful witness
114 when you were asked to tell the truth at Troy.’
‘If I spoke falsely, you falsified the coin,’ →
said Sinon, ‘and I am here for one offense alone,
117 but you for more than any other devil!’
‘You perjurer, keep the horse in mind,’ →
replied the sinner with the swollen paunch,
120 ‘and may it pain you that the whole world knows.’
‘And may you suffer from the thirst,’ the Greek replied,
‘that cracks your tongue, and from the fetid humor
123 that turns your belly to a hedge before your eyes!’
Then the forger: ‘And so, as usual,
your mouth gapes open from your fever.
126 If I am thirsty, and swollen by this humor, →
‘you have your hot spells and your aching head.
For you to lick the mirror of Narcissus
129 would not take much by way of invitation.’
I was all intent in listening to them,
when the master said: ‘Go right on looking →
132 and it is I who’ll quarrel with you.’
When I heard him speak to me in anger
I turned and faced him with a shame
135 that circles in my memory even now.
As a man who dreams that he is being harmed →
and, even as he dreams, hopes he is dreaming,
138 longing for what is, as though it weren’t—
so it was with me, deprived of speech:
I longed to seek his pardon—and all the while
141 I did so without knowing that I did.
‘Less shame would cleanse a greater fault than yours,’ →
my master said, ‘and that is why
144 you may set down the load of such remorse.
‘Do not forget I’m always at your side
should it fall out again that fortune take you
where people are in wrangles such as this.
148 For the wish to hear such things is base.’