Inferno: Canto XXXI
One and the
selfsame tongue first wounded me,
So
that it tinged the one cheek and the other,
And then held out to me the medicine;
Thus do I hear that
once Achilles' spear,
His
and his father's, used to be the cause
First of a sad and then a gracious boon.
We turned our backs
upon the wretched valley,
Upon
the bank that girds it round about,
Going across it without any speech.
There it was less
than night, and less than day,
So
that my sight went little in advance;
But I could hear the blare of a loud horn,
So loud it would
have made each thunder faint,
Which,
counter to it following its way,
Mine eyes directed wholly to one place.
After the dolorous discomfiture
When
Charlemagne the holy emprise lost,
So terribly Orlando sounded not.
Short while my head
turned thitherward I held
When
many lofty towers I seemed to see,
Whereat I: "Master, say, what town is this?"
And he to me:
"Because thou peerest forth
Athwart
the darkness at too great a distance,
It happens that thou errest in thy fancy.
Well shalt thou
see, if thou arrivest there,
How
much the sense deceives itself by distance;
Therefore a little faster spur thee on."
Then tenderly he
took me by the hand,
And
said: "Before we farther have advanced,
That the reality may seem to thee
Less strange, know
that these are not towers, but giants,
And
they are in the well, around the bank,
From navel downward, one and all of them."
As, when the fog is
vanishing away,
Little
by little doth the sight refigure
Whate'er the mist that crowds the air conceals,
So, piercing
through the dense and darksome air,
More
and more near approaching tow'rd the verge,
My error fled, and fear came over me;
Because as on its
circular parapets
Montereggione
crowns itself with towers,
E'en thus the margin which surrounds the well
With one half of
their bodies turreted
The
horrible giants, whom Jove menaces
E'en now from out the heavens when he thunders.
And I of one
already saw the face,
Shoulders,
and breast, and great part of the belly,
And down along his sides both of the arms.
Certainly Nature,
when she left the making
Of
animals like these, did well indeed,
By taking such executors from Mars;
And if of elephants
and whales she doth not
Repent
her, whosoever looketh subtly
More just and more discreet will hold her for it;
For where the
argument of intellect
Is
added unto evil will and power,
No rampart can the people make against it.
His face appeared
to me as long and large
As
is at Rome the pine-cone of Saint Peter's,
And in proportion were the other bones;
So that the margin,
which an apron was
Down
from the middle, showed so much of him
Above it, that to reach up to his hair
Three Frieslanders
in vain had vaunted them;
For
I beheld thirty great palms of him
Down from the place where man his mantle buckles.
"Raphael mai amech
izabi almi,"
Began
to clamour the ferocious mouth,
To which were not befitting sweeter psalms.
And unto him my
Guide: "Soul idiotic,
Keep
to thy horn, and vent thyself with that,
When wrath or other passion touches thee.
Search round thy
neck, and thou wilt find the belt
Which
keeps it fastened, O bewildered soul,
And see it, where it bars thy mighty breast."
Then said to me:
"He doth himself accuse;
This
one is Nimrod, by whose evil thought
One language in the world is not still used.
Here let us leave
him and not speak in vain;
For
even such to him is every language
As his to others, which to none is known."
Therefore a longer
journey did we make,
Turned
to the left, and a crossbow-shot oft
We found another far more fierce and large.
In binding him, who
might the master be
I
cannot say; but he had pinioned close
Behind the right arm, and in front the other,
With chains, that
held him so begirt about
From
the neck down, that on the part uncovered
It wound itself as far as the fifth gyre.
"This proud one
wished to make experiment
Of
his own power against the Supreme Jove,"
My Leader said, "whence he has such a guerdon.
Ephialtes is his
name; he showed great prowess.
What
time the giants terrified the gods;
The arms he wielded never more he moves."
And I to him: "If
possible, I should wish
That
of the measureless Briareus
These eyes of mine might have experience."
Whence he replied:
"Thou shalt behold Antaeus
Close
by here, who can speak and is unbound,
Who at the bottom of all crime shall place us.
Much farther yon is
he whom thou wouldst see,
And
he is bound, and fashioned like to this one,
Save that he seems in aspect more ferocious."
There never was an
earthquake of such might
That
it could shake a tower so violently,
As Ephialtes suddenly shook himself.
Then was I more
afraid of death than ever,
For
nothing more was needful than the fear,
If I had not beheld the manacles.
Then we proceeded
farther in advance,
And
to Antaeus came, who, full five ells
Without the head, forth issued from the cavern.
"O thou, who in the
valley fortunate,
Which
Scipio the heir of glory made,
When Hannibal turned back with all his hosts,
Once brought'st a
thousand lions for thy prey,
And
who, hadst thou been at the mighty war
Among thy brothers, some it seems still think
The sons of Earth
the victory would have gained:
Place
us below, nor be disdainful of it,
There where the cold doth lock Cocytus up.
Make us not go to
Tityus nor Typhoeus;
This
one can give of that which here is longed for;
Therefore stoop down, and do not curl thy lip.
Still in the world
can he restore thy fame;
Because
he lives, and still expects long life,
If to itself Grace call him not untimely."
So said the Master;
and in haste the other
His
hands extended and took up my Guide,--
Hands whose great pressure Hercules once felt.
Virgilius, when he
felt himself embraced,
Said
unto me: "Draw nigh, that I may take thee;"
Then of himself and me one bundle made.
As seems the
Carisenda, to behold
Beneath
the leaning side, when goes a cloud
Above it so that opposite it hangs;
Such did Antaeus
seem to me, who stood
Watching
to see him stoop, and then it was
I could have wished to go some other way.
But lightly in the
abyss, which swallows up
Judas
with Lucifer, he put us down;
Nor thus bowed downward made he there delay,
But, as a mast does
in a ship, uprose.
This document (last modifiedJanuary 08, 1998) from Believerscafe.com
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