Giustizia Mosse Il Mio Alto Fattore

FECEMI LA DIVINA PODESTATE,
LA SOMMA SAPIENZA E 'L PRIMO AMORE

Here's the 2nd part of our little mini trip through Dante's Inferno (because I forgot to do it yesterday.) Here's part 1 Cantos I-XIII if you missed


Canto XIV-XXIV

I saw myriad flocks of naked souls,
All weeping wretchedly, and it appeared
That separate sentences were meted to them.

Flat on their backs, some spread out on the ground;
Some squatted down, all hunched up in a crouch;
And others walked about interminably.

More numerous were those who roamed around;
Fewer were those stretched out for the torture,
But looser were their tongues to tell their hurt.

Over all the sand, large flakes of flame,
Falling slowly, came floating down, wafted
Like snow without a wind up in the mountains.

Just like the flames which Alexander saw
In the torrid regions of India
Swarming to the ground upon his legions,

So that he had his troops tramp down the soil,
The better to put out the flaming flakes
And to prevent them spreading other fires,

So descended the everlasting blaze
By which the sand enkindled, just like tinder
Under sparks from flint — doubling the pain.

Restlessly the dance of wretched hands
Went on and on, on this side and on that,
Beating off the freshly falling flames.

Eyed in this manner by that brotherhood,
I there was recognized by one who grasped me
By the hem — and cried, "How wonderful!"
And I, when he stretched out his arm to me,
So fixed my eyes upon his burnt-out features
Even his crusted face did not prevent me

From apprehending him in my mind’s eye,
And bending down my face to be with his

Canto XVII

And that repugnant picture of pure fraud
Came on, landing his head and his chest first,
But darting his tail out beyond the bank.

His face was the face of a saintly person,
So placid was the surface of the skin,
But his whole trunk was the shape of a snake.

He had two paws, with hair up to his armpits;
His back and breasts and both of his flanks
Were painted gaudily with knots and loops.

Tartars or Turks never wove a cloth
With more colors in background and design,
Nor did Arachne ever loom such webs.
[snip]
He called, "Now, Geryon, get up! Be sure
To make your circles wide and move down slowly:
Remember the strange weight that you now carry."

Just as a rowboat pulls out from its berth
Backwards, backwards, so that beast pushed off,
And when he felt himself all free in space,

There where his chest had been he turned his tail,
Stretching it out and waving it like an eel,
While with his paws he gathered in the air.

After this my teacher said to me,
"Stretch your head forward a little farther
So that your eyes may clearly catch the face

"Of that slatternly and smutty slut
Who scratches herself with shit-blackened nails,
Now squatting and now staggering to her feet.

"She is Thais the whore, who when her lover
Asked, ‘Are you very grateful to me?' answered,
‘Very! Why, extravagantly so!’

"But now our sight has had enough of this."

Up from the mouth of each hole there stuck out
A sinner’s feet and legs up to the calf,
The rest of him remained stuffed down inside.

The soles of both feet blazed all on fire;
The leg-joints wriggled uncontrollably:
They would have snapped any rope or tether.

Just as a flame on anything that’s oily
Spreads only on the object’s outer surface,
So did this fire move from heel to toe.

Canto XXI

With just the same rage and roaring of dogs
When they rush out on some poor passing beggar
Who stops dead in his tracks and starts to beg,

So these devils, from beneath the bridge
Shot out with all their prongs aimed at my guide,
But he shouted, "Stop being savages!

"Before you would impale me with your forks,
One of you step forward to hear me out
And then resolve to grapple me or not."

Alichino could not restrain himself
And, counter to the rest, said, "If you jump,
I wouldn’t come galloping after you;
"Instead, I’ll flap my wings above the pitch-pot!
We’ll leave this ridge and make the bank a shield
To see if all alone you can outsmart us!"

O reader, listen to the latest sport!
Each turned his eyes toward the other shore —
The first one was the fiend who most resisted!

The Navarrese picked his time perfectly,
Fixed both feet on the ground and in a flash
Leaped out and broke free of the fiend-in-charge!

Below that point we found a painted people
Who walked in circles with the slowest steps,
Weeping and worn in looks and overwhelmed.

The cloaks they wore had cowls drawn down low
Over their eyes, made in a similar style
As those that are made for monks in Cluny.

These are so gilded outside that they dazzle,
But inside, solid lead, and so heavy that,
Compared to them, Frederick’s capes were straw.
O mantle of unending weariness!
Once again we turned to the left hand,
Along with those souls rapt in their sad tears.

But with their weights the tired people trod
So slowly that we had fresh company
With every step we took along the way.
Then they said to me, "O Tuscan, you come
To this chapter of the sorry hypocrites:
Do not scorn to tell us who you are."

And there within I saw a repulsive mass
Of serpents in such a horrifying state
That still my blood runs cold when I recall them.

No more need Libya boast about the sands
Where chelydri, jaculi, phareae,
And cenchres with amphisbaena breed:

She could not show — with all Ethiopia
Nor the lands that lie surrounding the Red Sea —
So rampant and pestiferous a plague.

Among this cruel and miserable swarm
Were people running stripped and terrified,
With no hope of hiding-hole or heliotrope.

They had hands tied behind their backs by snakes
That thrust out head and tail through their loins
And that coiled then in knots around the front.

And look! A serpent sprang up at one sinner
Upon our strand and it transfixed him there
Where neck and shoulders knotted at the nape.

No o or i was ever written faster
Than that sinner flared up and burst in flames
And, falling down, completely turned to ashes.

And then, as he lay scattered on the ground,
The ashy dust collected by itself
And suddenly returned to its first shape.

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