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| THERE is a place within the depths of Hell | |
| Call’d Malebolge, all of rock dark-stain’d | |
| With hue ferruginous, e’en as the steep | |
| That round it circling winds. Right in the midst | |
| Of that abominable region yawns | 5 |
| A spacious gulf profound, whereof the frame | |
| Due time shall tell. The circle, that remains, | |
| Throughout its round, between the gulf and base | |
| Of the high craggy banks, successive forms | |
| Ten bastions, in its hollow bottom raised. | 10 |
| As where, to guard the walls, full many a foss | |
| Begirds some stately castle, sure defence | |
| Affording to the space within; so here | |
| Were model’d these: and as like fortresses, | |
| E’en from their threshold to the brink without, | 15 |
| Are flank’d with bridges; from the rock’s low base | |
| Thus flinty paths advanced, that ’cross the moles | |
| And dykes struck onward far as to the gulf, | |
| That in one bound collected cuts them off. | |
| Such was the place, wherein we found ourselves | 20 |
| From Geryon’s back dislodged. The bard to left | |
| Held on his way, and I behind him moved. | |
| On our right hand new misery I saw, | |
| New pains, new executioner of wrath, | |
| That swarming peopled that first chasm. Below | 25 |
| Were naked sinners. Hitherward they came, | |
| Meeting our faces, from the middle point; | |
| With us beyond, but with a larger stride. | |
| E’en thus the Romans, 1 when the year returns | |
| Of Jubilee, with better speed to rid | 30 |
| The thronging multitudes, their means devise | |
| For such as pass the bridge; that on one side | |
| All front toward the castle, and approach | |
| Saint Peter’s fane, on the other toward the mount. | |
| Each diverse way, along the grisly rock, | 35 |
| Horn’d demons I beheld, with lashes huge, | |
| That on their back unmercifully smote. | |
| Ah! how they made them bound at the first stripe! | |
| None for the second waited, nor the third. | |
| Meantime, as on I pass’d, one met my sight, | 40 |
| Whom soon as view’d, “Of him,” cried I, “not yet | |
| Mine eye hath had his fill.” I therefore stay’d | |
| My feet to scan him, and the teacher kind | |
| Paused with me, and consented I should walk | |
| Backward a space; and the tormented spirit, | 45 |
| Who thought to hide him, bent his visage down. | |
| But it avail’d him naught; for I exclaim’d: | |
| “Thou who dost cast thine eye upon the ground, | |
| Unless thy features do belie thee much, | |
| Venedico 2 art thou. But what brings thee | 50 |
| Into this bitter seasoning?” He replied: | |
| “Unwillingly I answer to thy words. | |
| But thy clear speech, that to my mind recalls | |
| The world I once inhabited, constrains me. | |
| Know then ’t was I who led fair Ghisola | 55 |
| To do the Marquis’ will, however fame | |
| The shameful tale have bruited. Nor alone | |
| Bologna hither sendeth me to mourn. | |
| Rather with us the place is so o’er throng’d, | |
| That not so many tongues this day are taught, | 60 |
| Betwixt the Reno and Savena’s stream, | |
| To answer Sipa 3 in their country’s phrase. | |
| And if of that securer proof thou need, | |
| Remember but our craving thirst for gold.” | |
| Him speaking thus, a demon with his throng | 65 |
| Struck and exclaim’d, “Away, corrupter! here | |
| Women are none for sale.” Forthwith I join’d | |
| My escort, and few paces thence we came | |
| To where a rock forth issued from the bank. | |
| That easily ascended, to the right | 70 |
| Upon its splinter turning, we depart | |
| From those eternal barriers. When arrived | |
| Where, underneath, the gaping arch lets pass | |
| The scourged souls: “Pause here,” the teacher said, | |
| “And let these others miserable now | 75 |
| Strike on thy ken; faces not yet beheld, | |
| For that together they with us have walk’d.” | |
| From the old bridge we eyed the pack, who came | |
| From the other side toward us, like the rest, | |
| Excoriate from the lash. My gentle guide, | 80 |
| By me unquestion’d, thus his speech resumed: | |
| “Behold that lofty shade, who this way tends, | |
| And seems too woe-begone to drop a tear. | |
| How yet the regal aspect he retains! | |
| Jason is he, whose skill and prowess won | 85 |
| The ram from Colchis. To the Lemnian isle | |
| His passage thither led him, when those bold | |
| And pitiless women had slain all their males. | |
| There he with tokens and fair witching words | |
| Hypsipyle 4 beguiled, a virgin young, | 90 |
| Who first had all the rest herself beguiled. | |
| Impregnated, he left her there forlorn. | |
| Such is the guilt condemns him to this pain. | |
| Here too Medea’s injuries are avenged. | |
| All bear him company, who like deceit | 95 |
| To his have practised. And thus much to know | |
| Of the first vale suffice thee, and of those | |
| Whom its keen torments urge.” Now had we come | |
| Where, crossing the next pier, the straiten’d path | |
| Bestrides its shoulders to another arch. | 100 |
| Hence, in the second chasm we heard the ghosts, | |
| Who gibber in low melancholy sounds, | |
| With wide-stretch’d nostrils snort, and on themselves | |
| Smite with their palms. Upon the banks a scurf, | |
| From the foul steam condensed, encrusting hung, | 105 |
| That held sharp combat with the sight and smell. | |
| So hollow is the depth, that from no part, | |
| Save on the summit of the rocky span, | |
| Could I distinguish aught. Thus far we came; | |
| And thence I saw, within the foss below, | 110 |
| A crowd immersed in ordure, that appear’d | |
| Draff of the human body. There beneath | |
| Searching with eye inquisitive, I mark’d | |
| One with his head so grimed, ’t were hard to deem | |
| If he were clerk or layman. Loud he cried: | 115 |
| “Why greedily thus bendest more on me, | |
| Than on these other filthy ones, thy ken?” | |
| “Because, if true my memory,” I replied, | |
| “I heretofore have seen thee with dry locks; | |
| And thou Alessio 5 art, of Lucca sprung. | 120 |
| Therefore than all the rest I scan thee more.” | |
| Then beating on his brain, these words he spake: | |
| “Me thus low down my flatteries have sunk, | |
| Wherewith I ne’er enough could glut my tongue.” | |
| My leader thus: “A little further stretch | 125 |
| Thy face, that thou the visage well mayst note | |
| Of that besotted, sluttish courtesan, | |
| Who there doth rend her with defiled nails, | |
| Now crouching down, now risen on her feet. | |
| Thaïs 6 is this, the harlot, whose false lip | 130 |
| Answer’d her doting paramour that ask’d, | |
| ‘Thankest me much!’—‘Say rather, wondrously,’ | |
| And, seeing this, here satiate be our view.” | |
