| |
| “THE BANNERS of Hell’s Monarch do come forth | |
| Toward us; therefore look,” so spake my guide, | |
| “If thou discern him.” As, when breathes a cloud | |
| Heavy and dense, or when the shades of night | |
| Fall on our hemisphere, seems view’d from far | 5 |
| A windmill, which the blast stirs briskly round; | |
| Such was the fabric then methought I saw. | |
| To shield me from the wind, forthwith I drew | |
| Behind my guide: no covert else was there. | |
| Now came I (and with fear I bid my strain | 10 |
| Record the marvel) where the souls were all | |
| Whelm’d underneath, transparent, as through glass | |
| Pellucid the frail stem. Some prone were laid; | |
| Others stood upright, this upon the soles, | |
| That on his head, a third with face to feet | 15 |
| Arch’d like a bow. When to the point we came, | |
| Whereat my guide was pleased that I should see | |
| The creature eminent in beauty once, | |
| He from before me stepp’d and made me pause. | |
| “Lo!” he exclaim’d, “lo! Dis; and lo! the place, | 20 |
| Where thou hast need to arm thy heart with strength.” | |
| How frozen and how faint I then became, | |
| Ask me not, reader! for I write it not; | |
| Since words would fail to tell thee of my state. | |
| I was not dead nor living. Think thyself, | 25 |
| If quick conception work in thee at all, | |
| How I did feel. That emperor, who sways | |
| The realm of sorrow, at mid breast from the ice | |
| Stood forth; and I in stature am more like | |
| A giant, than the giants are his arms. | 30 |
| Mark now how great that whole must be, which suits | |
| With such a part. If he were beautiful | |
| As he is hideous now, and yet did dare | |
| To scowl upon his Maker, well from him | |
| May all our misery flow. Oh what a sight! | 35 |
| How passing strange it seem’d, when I did spy | |
| Upon his head three faces: one in front | |
| Of hue vermilion, the other two with this | |
| Midway each shoulder join’d and at the crest; | |
| The right ’twixt wan and yellow seem’d; the left | 40 |
| To look on, such as come from whence old Nile | |
| Stoops to the lowlands. Under each shot forth | |
| Two mighty wings, enormous as became | |
| A bird so vast. Sails never such I saw | |
| Outstretch’d on the wide sea. No plumes had they, | 45 |
| But were in texture like a bat; and these | |
| He flapp’d i’ th’ air, that from him issued still | |
| Three winds, wherewith Cocytus to its depth | |
| Was frozen. At six eyes he wept: the tears | |
| Adown three chins distill’d with bloody foam. | 50 |
| At every mouth his teeth a sinner champ’d, | |
| Bruised as with ponderous engine; so that three | |
| Were in this guise tormented. But far more | |
| Than from that gnawing, was the foremost pang’d | |
| By the fierce rending, whence oft-times the back | 55 |
| Was stript of all its skin. “That upper spirit, | |
| Who hath worst punishment,” so spake my guide, | |
| “Is Judas, he that hath his head within | |
| And plies the feet without. Of th’ other two, | |
| Whose heads are under, from the murky jaw | 60 |
| Who hangs, is Brutus: 1 lo! how he doth writhe | |
| And speaks not. The other, Cassius, that appears | |
| So large of limb. But night now reascends; | |
| And it is time for parting. All is seen.” | |
| I clipp’d him round the neck; for so he bade: | 65 |
| And noting time and place, he, when the wings | |
| Enough were oped, caught fast the shaggy sides, | |
| And down from pile to pile descending stepp’d | |
| Between the thick fell and the jagged ice. | |
| Soon as he reach’d the point, whereat the thigh | 70 |
| Upon the swelling of the haunches turns, | |
| My leader there, with pain and struggling hard, | |
| Turn’d round his head where his feet stood before, | |
| And grappled at the fell as one who mounts; | |
| That into Hell methought we turn’d again. | 75 |
| “Expect that by such stairs as these,” thus spake | |
| The teacher, panting like a man forespent, | |
| “We must depart from evil so extreme:” | |
| Then at a rocky opening issued forth, | |
| And placed me on the brink to sit, next join’d | 80 |
| With wary step my side. I raised mine eyes, | |
| Believing that I Lucifer should see | |
| Where he was lately left, but saw him now | |
| With legs help upward. Let the grosser sort, | |
| Who see not what the point was I had past, | 85 |
| Bethink them if sore toil oppress’d me then. | |
| “Arise,” my master cried, “upon thy feet. | |
| The way is long, and much uncouth the road; | |
| And now within one hour and a half of noon 2 | |
| The sun returns.” It was no palace-hall | 90 |
| Lofty and luminous wherein we stood, | |
| But natural dungeon where ill-footing was | |
| And scant supply of light. “Ere from the abyss | |
| I separate,” thus when risen I began: | |
| “My guide! vouchsafe few words to set me free | 95 |
| From error’s thraldom. Where is now the ice? | |
| How standeth he in posture thus reversed? | |
| And how from eve to morn in space so brief | |
| Hath the sun made his transit?” He in few | |
| Thus answering spake: “Thou deemest thou art still | 100 |
| On the other side the centre, where I grasp’d | |
| The abhorred worm that boreth through the world. | |
| Thou wast on the other side, so long as I | |
| Descended; when I turn’d, thou didst o’erpass | |
| That point, to which from every part is dragg’d | 105 |
| All heavy substance. Thou art now arrived | |
| Under the hemisphere opposed to that, | |
| Which the great continent doth overspread, | |
| And underneath whose canopy expired | |
| The Man, that was born sinless and so lived. | 110 |
| Thy feet are planted on the smallest sphere, | |
| Whose other aspect is Judecca. Morn | |
| Here rises, when there evening sets: and he, | |
| Whose shaggy pile we scaled, yet standeth fix’d, | |
| As at the first. On this part he fell down | 115 |
| From Heaven; and th’ earth here prominent before, | |
| Through fear of him did veil her with the sea, | |
| And to our hemisphere retired. Perchance, | |
| To shun him, was the vacant space left here, | |
| By what of firm land on this side appears, 3 | 120 |
| That sprang aloof.” There is a place beneath, | |
| From Belzebub as distant, as extends | |
| The vaulted tomb; 4 discover’d not by sight, | |
| But by the sound of brooklet, that descends | |
| This way along the hollow of a rock, | 125 |
| Which, as it winds with no precipitous course, | |
| The wave hath eaten. By that hidden way | |
| My guide and I did enter, to return | |
| To the fair world: and heedless of repose | |
| We climb’d, he first, I following his steps, | 130 |
| Till on our view the beautiful lights of Heaven | |
| Dawn’d through a circular opening in the cave: | |
| Thence issuing we again beheld the stars. | |
