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Home  »  The Divine Comedy  »  Inferno [Hell]

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). The Divine Comedy.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Inferno [Hell]

Canto XXXIV ARGUMENT.—In the fourth and last round of the ninth circle, those who have betrayed their benefactors are wholly covered with ice. And in the midst is Lucifer, at whose back Dante and Virgil ascend, till by a secret path they reach the surface of the other hemisphere of the earth, and once more obtain sight of the stars.

“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

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

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

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,

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,

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.

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!

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

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,

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.

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

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

Who hangs, is Brutus: 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:

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

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.

“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

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,

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

The sun returns.” It was no palace-hall

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

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

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

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.

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

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,

That sprang aloof.” There is a place beneath,

From Belzebub as distant, as extends

The vaulted tomb; discover’d not by sight,

But by the sound of brooklet, that descends

This way along the hollow of a rock,

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,

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.