Dinanzi A Me Non Fuor Cose Create

SE NON ETTERNE, E IO ETTERNO DURO.
LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH'INTRATE

The final part of our journey into the depths of Hell

Cantos XXV-XXXIV

Canto XXV

While I was staring down at the three sinners
I saw a serpent with six feet, from in front
Leap up on one and entirely grip him.

It wrapped his stomach with its middle feet
And with its forefeet pinned him by the arms;
Then sank its teeth in one cheek, then the other.

It spread its hind feet down about his thighs
And thrust the tail out between his legs
And at his back pulled it up straight again.

Never did ivy cling to any tree
So tightly as that horrendous beast
Twined its limbs around and through the sinner’s.

Then the two stuck together as if made
Of hot wax and mixed their colors so
Neither one nor other seemed what once they were:

Just as, in front of the flame, a brown color
Advances on the burning paper, so that
It is not yet black but the white dies away.

The other two glared at one another, each
Crying out, "O Agnello, how you change!
Look! already you are neither two nor one."

The two heads by now had become one
When we saw the two features fuse together
Into one face in which they both were lost.

Two arms took shape out of the four remnants;
The thighs with the legs, belly, and chest,
Changed into members never before seen.

Then every former likeness was blotted out:
That perverse image seemed both two and neither,
And, such, at a slow pace, it moved away

Canto XXVI

In this way each flame moved through the throat
Of that deep ditch, none showing what it stole,
Though every flame secreted its own sinner.

I stood straight, then leaned out on the bridge
To look — had I not grabbed a jutting rock
I would have toppled off without a push!

And my guide, seeing me so attentive,
Said, "Within those fires there are souls,
Each one swathed in its self-scorching torment

Canto XXVIII

Even a cask with bottom or sides knocked out
Never cracked so wide as one soul I saw
Burst open from the chin to where one farts.

His guts were hanging out between his legs;
His pluck gaped forth and that disgusting sack
Which turns to shit what throats have gobbled down.

While I was all agog with gazing at him,
He stared at me and, as his two hands pulled
His chest apart, cried, "Look how I rip myself!

"Look at how mangled is Mohammed here!
In front of me, Ali treks onward, weeping,
His face cleft from his chin to his forelock.

"And all the others whom you see down here
Were sowers of scandal and schism while
They lived, and for this they are rent in two


I saw for sure — and still I seem to see it —
A body without a head that walked along
Just as the others in that sad herd were walking,

But it held the severed head by the hair,
Swinging it like a lantern in its hand,
And the head stared at us and said, "Ah me!"

Itself had made a lamp of its own self,
And they were two in one and one in two:
How can that be? He knows who so ordains it.

When it was right at the base of the bridge,
It raised up full length the arm with the head
To carry closer to us words, which were:

"Now you see the galling punishment,
You there, breathing, come visiting the dead:
See if you find pain heavier than this!

"And so that you may bring back news of me,
Know that I am Bertran de Born, the one
Who offered the young king corrupt advice.

"I made the son and father rebel foes.
Achitophel with his pernicious promptings
Did no worse harm to Absalom and David.

"Because I severed persons bound so closely,
I carry my brain separate (what grief!)
From its life-source which is within this trunk.

"So see in me the counterstroke of justice."

Canto XXIX

The swarms of people and the sweep of wounds
Had left my eyes so blind drunk with their tears
That still they ached to linger on and weep.

But Virgil said to me, "Why do you stare?
Why does your vision wallow down there yet
Among those dismal, mutilated shadows?

"At the other pockets you did not do so:
Consider, if you could count all of them,
Twenty-two miles the valley loops around.

"The moon already is beneath our feet:
The time that’s now allotted us is short
And you have more to see than you see here."

Canto XXXI

To this he answered, "Near here you shall see
Antaeus, who can talk and goes unfettered:
He’ll place us on the bottom pit of sin.
We left him to continue on our way,
And came to Antaeus, who rose five ells,
Not reckoning his head, above the rockbed.

[snip]
and in haste the giant
Stretched out his hands, whose tremendous grip
Hercules once felt, and clasped my guide.

Virgil, when he felt hands grasping him,
Called to me, "Come here, so I can hold you!"
And then he made himself and me one bundle.

As the Garisenda tower appears to look
From under its leaning side when clouds pass over
On the opposite direction it hangs in,

So Antaeus looked to me while I watched
Him bending over, and at such a moment
I wished that I had gone some other way.

But gently at that bottom which swallows
Lucifer with Judas, he put us down
And did not stay bent over us for long

Canto XXXII

At that I turned around and saw before me
And underneath my feet a lake of ice
So frozen that it looked like glass, not water.

Neither the Danube in Austria nor the Don,
Far-off under the cold sky, ever fashioned
So thick a veil in winter for its current

As was here: for if the peaks of Tambernic
Or Pietrapana had fallen down on it,
Not even at its edge would it have creaked.

The way frogs sit to croak with muzzles out
Of water, in the season when the peasant girl
Often dreams about her harvesting,

So these mournful shadows were sealed in ice,
Livid to where they blush their cheek with shame,
Teeth chattering with the clatter of a stork.

Each held his face bowed down before the ice,
Witnessing to the cold by their mouths,
Witnessing to the heartache with their eyes.
We left them, and soon afterward I saw
Two souls frozen in one hole so close
That one’s head served as the other’s hood.

Just as a hungry man chews on bread crusts,
So did the one on top sink his teeth into
The other’s nape at the base of the brain.

Tydeus gnawed the head of Menalippus
With no more fury than this sinner showed
In gnawing on the skull of skin and bone.

Canto XXXIV

The emperor of the kingdom of despair
Rose up from mid-chest out of the sheer ice;
And I come closer to a giant’s height

Than giants match the size of his huge arms:
See now how large the whole of him must be
If it’s proportionate to that one part!

Were he once as beautiful as now he’s ugly
(And yet he raised his fist against his Maker!)
Well may all our grief come down from him!

Oh how much wonder was it for me when
I saw that on his head he had three faces:
One in front — and it was fiery red —

And two others, which joined onto this one
Above the center of his shoulder blades,
And all three came together at his crown.

The right face seemed halfway white and yellow
While the left one looked the color of the race
That lives close to the source of the Nile.

Beneath each face there sprouted two large wings,
Suitably massive for such a bird of prey:
I never sighted sails so broad at sea.

They had no feathers but looked just like a bat’s,
And he kept flapping these wings up and down
So that three winds moved out from in around him:

This was the cause Cocytus was all iced.
With six eyes he wept, and from his three chins
Dripped down the teardrops and a bloody froth.

In each mouth he mashed up a separate sinner
With his sharp teeth, as if they were a grinder,
And in this way he put the three through torture

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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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Per Me Si Va Ne La Città Dolente

PER ME SI VA NE L'ETTERNO DOLORE, PER ME SI VA TRA LA PERDUTA GENTE

Yesterday when I first saw this article in the New York Observer about "Life in Knicks Hell", the illustration reminded me of Dante and his Commedia. Well, that and I was thinking about what circle of hell I would end up in (btw, besides the killers and tyrants in the 1st ring, the 2nd and 3rd rings of the Seventh Circle are going to be amazing- just think of how many cool sodomites and suicides there've been.)

Anyway I came across the engraving for the text from Gustave Doré, whose work I've always loved a lot(though I did not know he was so late) and decided to share them with you in a mini series on Sundays. Because what day is more appropriate to, in the words of Jim Morrison,"think about our eventual ends." This'll probably be a failed experiment but...
Here are Canto I-XIII from Inferno (and the image above is Botticelli's view of Dante's hell)

Halfway through the journey we are living
I found myself deep in a darkened forest,
For I had lost all trace of the straight path.

Ah how hard it is to tell what it was like,
How wild the forest was, how dense and rugged!
To think of it still fills my mind with panic

But not so when — to add now to my fears —
In front of me I caught sight of a lion!

He appeared to be coming straight at me
With head held high and furious for hunger,
So that the air itself seemed to be shaking.

Day was now fading, and the dusky air
Released the creatures dwelling here on earth
From tiring tasks, while I, the only one,

Readied myself to endure the battle
Both of the journey and the pathos,
Which flawless memory shall here record.

The demon Charon, with burning-ember eyes,
Gave a signal and gathered all on board,
Smacking lagging stragglers with his oar.

So I saw that brilliant schola meeting
Under the master of sublimest song
Who above all others soars like an eagle.

After conversing for some time together,
They turned to me with a cordial greeting:
With that, my master broke into a smile.
And then they showed me a still greater honor,
For they included me within their group,
So that I was the sixth among those minds.

This way we walked together toward the light,
Speaking of things as well unmentioned here
As there it was as well to speak of them

Just as the doves when homing instinct calls them
To their sweet nest, on steadily lifted wings
Glide through the air, guided by their longing,
So those souls left the covey where Dido lies,
Moving toward us through the malignant air,
So strong was the loving-kindness in my cry.

"O mortal man, gracious and tenderhearted,
Who through the somber air come to visit
The two of us who stained the earth with blood,

"If the King of the universe were our friend,
We would then pray to him to bring you peace,
Since you show pity for our wretched plight.

"Whatever you please to hear and speak about
We will hear and speak about with you
While the wind, as it is now, is silent.

And I, standing there to stare intently,
Saw in that morass people smeared with mud,
All naked, their faces lined with rage.

They beat each other not just with their hands
But even with their heads and chest and feet
And with their teeth ripped each other to pieces.

My own good master said, "Son, now you see
The souls of those whom anger overpowered.
I also want you to accept for certain

"That under the water there are people sighing
Who make the surface of the water bubble,
As your eye tells you whichever way it turns."

Mired in slime, they moan, "We were morose
In the sweet air made cheerful by the sun;
We bore within ourselves the torpid vapors:

"Now morbid we are made in this black mud."

My guide then stepped down into the boat,
And next he made me enter after him:
Only when I was in did it seem weighted.

As soon as my guide and I embarked,
The ancient prow pushed off, ploughing down
Water more deeply than it does with others.

Here at one spot there straightaway stood up
Three infernal Furies stained with blood,
Their bodies and behavior that of women.

Their waists were cinctured with green hydras;
For hair they had horned snakes and poison adders
With which their savage temples were enwreathed.

And clearly recognizing the handmaidens
Of the Queen of unending mournfulness,
He said to me, "Look at the fierce Erinyes:

"That one there on the left is Megaera,
And on the right is Alecto, wailing;
Tisiphone is in the middle." He ceased.

With her nails each one tore at her own breasts,
Thrashed with her hands, and shouted out so loud
That in dread I drew closer to the poet.

"Look here at Farinata straightening up!
From waist high you will see the whole of him."

I had already fixed my eyes on his
While he emerged with his forehead and chest,
Looking as though he held hell in contempt

And at the brink over the broken chasm
There lay outspread the infamy of Crete

That was conceived within the bogus cow;
And when he saw us, he bit into himself,
Like someone whom wrath tears up from inside

Inside here nest the repugnant Harpies
Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades
With foul prophecies of coming losses.

They have wide wings, human necks and faces,
Feet with claws, and big feathered bellies;
They shriek laments from up in the strange trees.

I heard deep wailings rising from all sides,
Without discerning anyone who made them,
So that, completely baffled, I stopped short.

I think he thought that I was thinking that
All of the voices from among the trunks
Rose up from people who were hiding from us.
...
"The answer I give you shall be concise.

"Whenever the violent soul forsakes the flesh
From which it tore itself by its own roots,
Minos assigns it to the seventh pit.

"It plummets to the wood — no place is picked —
But wherever fortune happens to have hurled it,
There it sprouts up like a grain of spelt;

"It springs into a sapling and wild tree;
The harpies, feeding on its foliage,
Cause pain and then an outlet for the pain.

"Like others we shall go to our shed bodies,
But not to dress ourselves in them once more,
For it is wrong to own what you tossed off.

"Here shall we haul them, and throughout the sad
Wood forevermore shall our bodies hang,
Each from the thornbush of its tortured shade."

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