English Edition, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
| 1 | THE many people and the divers wounds |
| 2 | These eyes of mine had so inebriated, |
| 3 | That they were wishful to stand still and weep; |
| 4 | But said Virgilius: What dost thou still gaze at? |
| 5 | Why is thy sight still riveted down there |
| 6 | Among the mournful, mutilated shades ? |
| 7 | Thou hast not done so at the other Bolge; |
| 8 | Consider, if to count them thou believest, |
| 9 | That two-and-twenty miles the valley winds, |
| 10 | And now the moon is underneath our feet; |
| 11 | Henceforth the time allotted us is brief, |
| 12 | And more is to be seen than what thou seest. |
| 13 | If thou hadst, I made answer thereupon |
| 14 | Attended to the cause for which I looked, |
| 15 | Perhaps a longer stay thou wouldst have pardoned. |
| 16 | Meanwhile my Guide departed, and behind him |
| 17 | I went, already making my reply, |
| 18 | And superadding: In that cavern where |
| 19 | I held mine eyes with such attention fixed, |
| 20 | I think a spirit of my blood laments |
| 21 | The sin which down below there costs so much |
| 22 | Then said the Master: Be no longer broken |
| 23 | Thy thought from this time forward upon him; |
| 24 | Attend elsewhere, and there let him remain; |
| 25 | For him I saw below the little bridge, |
| 26 | Pointing at thee, and threatening with his finger |
| 27 | Fiercely, and heard him called Geri del Bello. |
| 28 | So wholly at that time wast thou impeded |
| 29 | By him who formerly held Altaforte, |
| 30 | Thou didst not look that way; so he departed. |
| 31 | O my Conductor, his own violent death, |
| 32 | Which is not yet avenged for him,I said, |
| 33 | By any who is sharer in the shame, |
| 34 | Made him disdainful; whence he went away, |
| 35 | As I imagine, without speaking to me, |
| 36 | And thereby made me pity him the more. |
| 37 | Thus did we speak as far as the first place |
| 38 | Upon the crag, which the next valley shows |
| 39 | Down to the bottom, if there were more light. |
| 40 | When we were now right over the last cloister |
| 41 | Of Malebolge, so that its lay-brothers |
| 42 | Could manifest themselves unto our sight, |
| 43 | Divers lamentings pierced me through and through, |
| 44 | Which with compassion had their arrows barbed, |
| 45 | Whereat mine ears I covered with my hands. |
| 46 | What pain would be, if from the hospitals |
| 47 | Of Valdichiana, ‘twixt July and September, |
| 48 | And of Maremma and Sardinia |
| 49 | All the diseases in one moat were gathered, |
| 50 | Such was it here, and such a stench came from it |
| 51 | As from putrescent limbs is wont to issue. |
| 52 | We had descended on the furthest bank |
| 53 | From the long crag, upon the left hand still, |
| 54 | And then more vivid was my power of sight |
| 55 | Down tow’rds the bottom, where the ministress |
| 56 | Of the high Lord, Justice infallible, |
| 57 | Punishes forgers, which she here records. |
| 58 | I do not think a sadder sight to see |
| 59 | Was in Aegina the whole people sick, |
| 60 | (When was the air so full of pestilence, |
| 61 | The animals, down to the little worm, |
| 62 | All fell, and afterwards the ancient people, |
| 63 | According as the poets have affirmed, |
| 64 | Were from the seed of ants restored again,) |
| 65 | Than was it to behold through that dark |
| 66 | The spirits languishing in divers heaps. |
| 67 | This on the belly, that upon the back |
| 68 | One of the other lay, and others crawling |
| 69 | Shifted themselves along the dismal road. |
| 70 | We step by step went onward without speech, |
| 71 | Gazing upon and listening to the sick |
| 72 | Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies. |
| 73 | I saw two sitting leaned against each other, |
| 74 | As leans in heating platter against platter, |
| 75 | From head to foot bespotted o’er with scabs; |
| 76 | And never saw I plied a currycomb |
| 77 | By stable-boy for whom his master waits, |
| 78 | Or him who keeps awake unwillingly, |
| 79 | As every one was plying fast the bite |
| 80 | Of nails upon himself, for the great rage |
| 81 | Of itching which no other succour had. |
| 82 | And the nails downward with them dragged the scab, |
| 83 | In fashion as a knife the scales of bream, |
| 84 | Or any other fish that has them largest. |
| 85 | O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee, |
| 86 | Began my Leader unto one of them, |
| 87 | And makest of them pincers now and then, |
| 88 | Tell me if any Latian is with those |
| 89 | Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee |
| 90 | To all eternity unto this work. |
| 91 | Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest, |
| 92 | Both of us here, one weeping made reply; |
| 93 | But who art thou, that questionest about us? |
| 94 | And said the Guide: One am I who descends |
| 95 | Down with this living man from cliff to cliff, |
| 96 | And I intend to show Hell unto him. |
| 97 | Then broken was their mutual support, |
| 98 | And trembling each one turned himself to me, |
| 99 | With others who had heard him by rebound. |
| 100 | Wholly to me did the good Master gather, |
| 101 | Saying: Say unto them whate’er thou wishest. |
| 102 | And I began, since he would have it so: |
| 103 | So may your memory not steal away |
| 104 | In the first world from out the minds of men, |
| 105 | But so may it survive ‘neath many suns, |
| 106 | Say to me who ye are, and of what people; |
| 107 | Let not your foul and loathsome punishment |
| 108 | Make you afraid to show yourselves to me. |
| 109 | I of Arezzo was, one made reply, |
| 110 | And Albert of Siena had me burned; |
| 111 | But what I died for does not bring me here. |
| 112 | ‘Tis true I said to him, speaking in jest, |
| 113 | That I could rise by flight into the air, |
| 114 | And he who had conceit, but little wit, |
| 115 | Would have me show to him the art; and only |
| 116 | Because no Daedelus I made him, made me |
| 117 | Be burned by one who held him as his son. |
| 118 | But unto the last Bolgia of the ten, |
| 119 | For alchemy, which in the world I practised, |
| 120 | Minos, who cannot err, has me condemned. |
| 121 | And to the Poet said I: Now was ever |
| 122 | So vain a people as the Sienese? |
| 123 | Not for a certainty the French by far. |
| 124 | Whereat the other leper, who had heard me, |
| 125 | Replied unto my speech: Taking out Stricca, |
| 126 | Who knew the art of moderate expenses, |
| 127 | And Niccolo, who the luxurious use |
| 128 | Of cloves discovered earliest of all |
| 129 | Within that garden where such seed takes root; |
| 130 | And taking out the band, among whom squandered |
| 131 | Caccia d’Ascian his vineyards and vast woods, |
| 132 | And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered! |
| 133 | But,that thou know who thus doth second thee |
| 134 | Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eye |
| 135 | Tow’rds me, so that my face well answer thee, |
| 136 | And thou shalt see I am Capocchio’s shade, |
| 137 | Who metals falsified by alchemy; |
| 138 | Thou must remember, if I well descry thee, |
| 139 | How I a skilful ape of nature was. |