CANTO IX

The colour cowardice had painted pale
Upon my cheek, seeing my Guide turn back,
Made him more promptly his own hue countervail.
He stopt, like one who some far sound would track,
Listening: for but short distance could eye strive
Into the dim air filmed with vapour black.
" Yet needs must that the victory we contrive, "
He began; " unless, ... we were promised aid ...
O how long seems it till that one arrive! "
Well I perceived how his beginning stayed,
And how with other words the firsThe sought
To cover, and with a difference overlaid.
Nevertheless his language on me wrought;
For it may be the words he faltered on
I drew to a worse meaning than his thought.
" Into this bottom of the shell's drear cone
Comes ever any from the first degree,
Whose only punishment is hope forgone? "
So did I question; and he answered me:
" Rarely it chances that any of us essay
This journey upon which I go with thee.
True it is that once ere now I came this way,
By that Erichtho fearfully conjured
Who summoned back the shadows to their clay.
To the body's loss not long was I inured
When she made me to enter within that wall
To fetch a spirit in Judas' circle immured.
That is the lowest and most dark place of all,
Farthest from the Heaven that moveth all. I know
Full well the way: let naught then thee appal.
This marsh, whose exhalation stinketh so,
Girdles the dolorous city of the dead,
Where without anger now we cannot go. "
My memory hath not kept what more he said,
Because mine eyes drew me all up where I stood
To the high tower's top, palpitating red,
Where, all in a moment risen up, with blood
Spotted on them, three Hellish Furies frowned.
Women they were in body and attitude,
And they were girt with bright green hydras round.
For hair they had small snakes and horn'd vipers
About the ghastness of their temples wound.
He recognizing well the ministers
Who serve the queen of sorrow that hath no cease,
Said to me: " Mark now the Erynnes fierce!
The Fury upon the left Megaera is;
Alecto is she that clamours on the right;
'Twixt them Tisiphone. " Then he held his peace.
Each aTher breast was clawing, and then would smite
Her body with the palms: so loud their moan,
I pressed close to the poet in my affright.
" Let come Medusa, and change we him to stone! "
All with one voice, and eyes bent downward, said.
" Ill made we Theseus his assault atone. "
" Turn backwards. Keep thine eyes closed in thy head!
For if thou with the Gorgon should'st be faced,
There would be no return up from the dead. "
Thus spoke the Master, and he himself made haste
To turn me, and would not in my hands confide
But with his own me also he encased.
O ye who have sane intellects for guide
Consider well the doctrines that for cloak
Beneath the strangeness of the verses hide!
And now upon the turbid waters broke
A crash, terrible with re-echoings
That into trembling either shore awoke.
It was a sound as of a wind that springs
Impetuous, when the opposing heats are dry,
Which unrelaxing all the forest wrings,
Wrenches the boughs off, breaks and beats awry.
Rolling the dust, imperiously it towers,
And makes the wild beasts and the shepherds fly.
Freeing my eyes, he said: " Direct thy powers
Of vision over the foam of the ancient lake,
Where most the smoke is and the swart air lours. "
As frogs before their enemy the snake
Run through the water, scattered at his threat,
Till each squats on the bottom, there to quake,
So saw I thousand ruined spirits set
In flight before one, who came down apace
And passed the Stygian ferry with soles unwet.
He waved the gross fumes from before his face,
Moving often his left hand as he went,
And only of that annoyance showed he trace.
Well did I know thaThe from Heaven was sent,
And turned to the Master, and he signed his will
That I should stand all quiet with head down-bent.
Ah, with what scorn his countenance seemed to fill!
He came to the gate, and with a wand he held
Set it wide open, unresisted still.
" O race contemptible, from Heaven expelled! "
Began he then, on the malign threshold,
" Why is your contumacy yet unquelled?
Why at that Will still spurn ye, as of old,
Whose infinite fulfilment naught frustrates
And which hath oft increased your pains fourfold?
What profits it to butt against the Fates?
Cerberus yet rues his chin peeled and throat scored
For this, if ye remember, at yon gates. "
Then on the unclean journey, without word
Spoken to us, returned he, and looked like one
By other business constrained and spurred
Than that of those before him; and thereon
We moved, and toward the city made our way,
Secure of what the sacred words had done.
We entered into it without any affray.
And I who had desire to scrutinize
What things, and how, within such fortress lay,
Soon as I was within, sent round my eyes
And saw a wilderness on either hand
Full of evil torments and of miseries.
Like as at Arles, where Rhone stagnates in sand,
Like as at Pola, by Quarnaro Sound,
That barriers Italy and bathes her strand,
Sepulchres make uneven all the ground,
So here on every side were tombs arrayed,
Only thaThere was bitterer burial found.
For scatterings of flame among them played
Whereby they were so heated through and through
That no craft needeth iron hotter made.
Their covers were all raised up in our view,
And out of them such hard lamenting rose
As seemed the cry of a most wretched crew.
And I spoke: " Tell me, Master, who are those
Who, within these chests buried, so beseech
With grievous sighs compassion on their throes? "
And he: " The Arch-Heretics are here, with each
His following of all sects: and heavier load
These tombs have in them than thy thought can reach.
Here like with like is buried in one abode,
And less or more hot are the monuments. "
Then to the right hand turning, our feet trod
Between those pangs and the high battlements.