Inferno, Song XXX

The story thus far: Dante, a poet and town prior in Florence, finds himself on a dark road of the soul. Before his spirit can fall to its ruin, he encounters Virgil, the greatest poet of classical Rome. Virgil, at the behest of Beatrice, a woman who was Dante's inspiration in life, offers Dante a journey through the realms of the afterworld, through which Dante may find his soul's salvation. He shall travel through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, with Virgil as his guide through the first two. Dante accepts Virgil's offer, and they embark. After passing through the gates of Hell, they encounter the souls of the cowards who took no stand in conflicts between good and evil, and then proceed to Limbo, the realm of the noble or innocent souls who were not baptized or otherwise not believers in the Christian faith. Dante and Virgil then travel through the first circles of damnation and the city of Dis, which punish those who embrace earthly appetites and goods at God's expense. Upon leaving the city, Virgil explains the plan of Hell to Dante. The circles that follow hold, in descending order of heinousness, those who commit violence, fraud, and betrayal. In the circle of the Violent, they encounter murderers, merciless conquerors, suicides, and who squandered or destroyed their belongings. From there, they walk alongside a desert where fire rains down. It is the prison for those who were violent against God and nature, including blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers. Dante and Virgil then descend to next level of Hell on the back of Geryon, a flying monster. It is the circle of the fraudulent, and along the way, they encounter the panderers, seducers, flatterers, corrupt clergy, fortune-tellers, diviners, and grafters. The last are overseen a gaggle of demons, from whom Dante and Virgil must escape before encountering the religious hypocrites and the thieves. Next are the false counselors, including Odysseus, who tells Virgil of his final voyage, and Guido da Montefeltro, who was damned by his sinister military advice to Pope Boniface VIII. Those who sowed division are next. Among their number are Bertan de Born, Ali, and Mohammed. After them are the falsifiers. The first of that number Dante and Virgil encounter are the alchemists.

Among the impersonators, Gianni Schichi attacks Capocchio

In the time when Juno directed her wrath
Against the Theban blood due to Semele,
As she showed them time and again--

Athamas' madness became such
That, seeing his wife with their two children,
Going with one in each arm,

He cried, "Let us cast our nets, so I can catch
The lioness and her cubs as they pass."
And then he extended his pitiless claws

Taking the one named Learchus,
Whirling him around and crashing him against a rock.
She then drowned herself with the other one.

And when Fortune brought down
The glory of the Trojans who dared all,
So that together their king and kingdom were wiped out;

Hecuba, sad, miserable, and enslaved,
And after that seeing Polyxena dead
Along with her Polydorus upon the shore

Of the sea, she came to truly know sorrow
And began barking like a dog.
Her grief was so great it drove her mad.

But no Fury of Thebes or Troy
Was ever seen so cruel to anyone,
Not attacking beasts nor butchering people,

As the two pale and naked shades I saw
That ran snapping in the manner
Of a hog when let out from the sty.

One went to Capocchio, and into the nape
Of his neck it bit its fangs. It then dragged him,
And made his belly scrape along the hard bottom of the ditch.

And the Aretine. who, trembling, remained,
He said to me, "That demon is Gianni Schicchi,
And rabidly he goes, attacking the others here."

"Oh," I said to him, "so the other one does not fix
Its teeth on your back. If it does not trouble you,
Tell me who it is before it goes away."

He replied, "That is the ancient soul
Of wicked Myrrha, who became
Close to her father with love beyond what’s right.

As such, she brought herself to sin with him,
Disguising herself as another,
Just as the other one who goes yonder did the same.
In order to gain the highest lady of the herd,
Disguised himself as Buoso Donati,
Dictating and finalizing an official will."

And then when the two rabid ones had left--
The two upon whom I kept my eyes--
I turned to look at the other misbegotten ones.

I saw one, made to look like a lute,
As his groin was
Cut off at the part where a man is forked.

The heavy dropsy, which so distorts the size of
The limbs through poor metabolism of the humors,
So that the face does not respond to the belly,

Made him hold his lips open
Like the hectic ones who, because of thirst,
Curls one toward the chin, and the other upward.

"O you who are exempt from any punishment--
And I do not know why--in this grim world,"
He said to us. “Look and pay attention

To the misery of Master Adam.
I had, when alive, enough of everything I wanted.
And now, alas, I thirst for even one drop of water.

The small streams that from the green hills
Of Casentino descend to the Arno,
Making their channels cool and moist,

Are always before me, and not in vain,
For my memory of them parches me far more
Than the disease that ravages my face.

The unyielding justice that searches me
Draws reason from the place where I sinned
To make my sighs fly downward.

There is Romena, where I counterfeited
The coin stamped with the Baptist’s face.
For that I left the world above with my body in flames.

But if I saw here the miserable soul
Of Guido, or Alessandro, or their brother,
I would not give it up for Fonte Branda.

One is already in here, if the raging
Shades that go round speak the truth.
But what good is it to me, since my limbs are bound?

If I were still of such lightness
That I could move an inch within a hundred years,
I would have already put myself on the path

Searching for him among these disfigured people,
Even with it being all of eleven miles round,
And half of one across its track.

It is because of them that I am among such brethren.
They induced me to stamp the florins
That had three carats of dross."

And I said to him, "Who are the two wretches
Who smoke like hands in winter after washing--
Those lying close on your right-hand boundary?"

"I found them here--and they have not moved since--
When I fell like rain into this gully,” he replied.
“And I do not believe they shall for all of eternity."

The woman is the deceiver who accused Joseph;
The other is the deceitful Sinon, the Greek from Troy.
A burning fever makes them reek so badly."

And one of them, aggravated
Perhaps from being named in such dark terms,
Struck him with a fist in his swollen belly.

The blow sounded as if it had hit a drum.
And Master Adam struck him in the face
With his arm—a blow that seemed just as hard.

He said to the other, "Although I am kept from
Moving by the weight of my limbs,
I have a free arm for such instances."

To which the other replied, "When you went
To the flames, you didn’t have it that ready.
But you had it so and more when you were coining."

And the one with dropsy said, "You speak the truth with this.
But you were not so true a witness
At Troy, where the truth was requested."

While I spoke falsely, you also falsified the coin,"
Sinon said. “And I am here for one failing,
While you are for more than any other fiend."

"Remember, perjurer, the Horse,"
Replied the one with the bloated belly.
"And may it torment you that the entire world knows!"

"And may you be tormented by the thirst that cracks
Your tongue," said the Greek, “as well as by the putrid water
That makes your belly crowd in front of your eyes."

The counterfeiter then said, "And so erupts
Your mouth, as usual, with your evil.
For if I thirst and bile bloats me,

You burn with fever, and your head aches.
And to lick the mirror of Narcissus,
You would not need many words inviting you."

I was entirely focused on listening to them
When my master said to me, "Now, if you watch
Much longer, you and I will quarrel!"

When I heard him speaking to me in anger
I turned to him with such shame
That it still turns in my memory.

Like one who dreams of harm to himself,
Who dreaming, longs for it to be a dream,
So that he covets what actually is as if it had not happened,

This is what I became, not able to speak. I wished to redeem myself--and I did redeem
Myself completely, although I did not think that I did.

"Greater faults are washed away by lesser shame
Than yours have been," my master said.
"So unburden yourself of all sadness.

Keep in mind that I am always at your side
If, in the future, fortune brings you down to
Where people are in a similar argument.

For wanting to hear such is a low desire."

Continue to Song XXXI