| |
| UPON the utmost verge of a high bank, | |
| By craggy rocks environ’d round, we came. | |
| Where woes beneath, more cruel yet, were stow’d: | |
| And here, to shun the horrible excess | |
| Of fetid exhalation upward cast | 5 |
| From the profound abyss, behind the lid | |
| Of a great monument we stood retired, | |
| Whereon this scroll I mark’d: “I have in charge | |
| Pope Anastasius, 1 whom Photinus drew | |
| From the right path.” “Ere our descent, behoves | 10 |
| We make delay, that somewhat first the sense, | |
| To the dire breath accustom’d, afterward | |
| Regard it not.” My master thus; to whom | |
| Answering I spake: “Some compensation find, | |
| That the time pass not wholly lost.” He then: | 15 |
| “Lo! how my thoughts e’en to thy wishes tend. | |
| My son! within these rocks,” he thus began, | |
| “Are three close circles in gradation placed, | |
| As these which now thou leavest. Each one is full | |
| Of spirits accurst; but that the sight alone | 20 |
| Hereafter may suffice thee, listen how | |
| And for what cause in durance they abide. | |
| “Of all malicious act abhorr’d in Heaven, | |
| The end is injury; and all such end | |
| Either by force or fraud works other’s woe. | 25 |
| But fraud, because of man’s peculiar evil, | |
| To God is more displeasing; and beneath, | |
| The fraudulent are therefore doom’d to endure | |
| Severer pang. The violent occupy | |
| All the first circle; and because, to force, | 30 |
| Three persons are obnoxious, in three rounds, | |
| Each within other separate, is it framed. | |
| To God, his neighbor, and himself, by man | |
| Force may be offer’d; to himself I say, | |
| And his possessions, as thou soon shalt hear | 35 |
| At full. Death, violent death, and painful wounds | |
| Upon his neighbor he inflicts; and wastes, | |
| By devastation, pillage, and the flames, | |
| His substance. Slayers, and each one that smites | |
| In malice, plunderers, and all robbers, hence | 40 |
| The torment undergo of the first round, | |
| In different herds. Man can do violence | |
| To himself and his own blessings: and for this, | |
| He, in the second round must aye deplore | |
| With unavailing penitence his crime, | 45 |
| Whoe’er deprives himself of life and light, | |
| In reckless lavishment his talent wastes, | |
| And sorrows there where he should dwell in joy. | |
| To God may force be offer’d, in the heart | |
| Denying and blaspheming His high power, | 50 |
| And Nature with her kindly law contemning. | |
| And thence the inmost round marks with its seal | |
| Sodom, and Cahors, and all such as speak | |
| Contemptuously of the Godhead in their hearts. | |
| “Fraud, that in every conscience leaves a sting, | 55 |
| May be by man employ’d on one, whose trust | |
| He wins, or on another, who withholds | |
| Strict confidence. Seems as the latter way | |
| Broke but the bond of love which Nature makes. | |
| Whence in the second circle have their nest, | 60 |
| Dissimulation, witchcraft, flatteries, | |
| Theft, falsehood, simony, all who seduce | |
| To lust, or set their honesty at pawn, | |
| With such vile scum as these. The other way | |
| Forgets both Nature’s general love, and that | 65 |
| Which thereto added afterward gives birth | |
| To special faith. Whence in the lesser circle, | |
| Point of the universe, dread seat of Dis, | |
| The traitor is eternally consumed.” | |
| I thus: “Instructor, clearly thy discourse | 70 |
| Proceeds, distinguishing the hideous chasm | |
| And its inhabitants with skill exact. | |
| But tell me this: they of the dull, fat pool, | |
| Whom the rain beats, or whom the tempest drives, | |
| Or who with tongues so fierce conflicting meet, | 75 |
| Wherefore within the city fire-illumed | |
| Are not these punish’d, if God’s wrath be on them? | |
| And if it be not, wherefore in such guise | |
| Are they condemn’d?” He answer thus return’d: | |
| “Wherefore in dotage wanders thus thy mind, | 80 |
| Not so accustom’d? or what other thoughts | |
| Possess it? Dwell not in thy memory | |
| The words, wherein thy ethic page 2 describes | |
| Three dispositions adverse to Heaven’s will, | |
| Incontinence, malice, and mad brutishness, | 85 |
| And how incontinence the least offends | |
| God, and least guilt incurs? If well thou note | |
| This judgment, and remember who they are, | |
| Without these walls to vain repentance doom’d, | |
| Thou shalt discern why they apart are placed | 90 |
| From these fell spirits, and less wreakful pours | |
| Justice divine on them its vengeance down.” | |
| “O sun! who healest all imperfect sight, | |
| Thou so content’st me, when thou solvest my doubt, | |
| That ignorance not less than knowledge charms. | 95 |
| Yet somewhat turn thee back,” I in these words | |
| Continued,” where thou said’st, that usury | |
| Offends celestial Goodness; and this knot | |
| Perplex’d unravel.” He thus made reply: | |
| “Philosophy, to an attentive ear, | 100 |
| Clearly points out, not in one part alone, | |
| How imitative Nature takes her course | |
| From the celestial mind, and from its art: | |
| And where her laws 3 the Stagirite unfolds, | |
| Not many leaves scann’d o’er, observing well | 105 |
| Thou shalt discover, that your art on her | |
| Obsequious follows, as the learner treads | |
| In his instructor’s step; so that your art | |
| Deserves the name of second in descent | |
| From God. These two, if thou recall to mind | 110 |
| Creation’s holy book, 4 from the beginning | |
| Were the right source of life and excellence | |
| To human-kind. But in another path | |
| The usurer walks; and Nature in herself | |
| And in her follower thus he sets at nought, | 115 |
| Placing elsewhere his hope. 5 But follow now | |
| My steps on forward journey bent; for now | |
| The Pisces play with undulating glance | |
| Along the horizon, and the Wain 6 lies all | |
| O’er the northwest; and onward there a space | 120 |
| Is our steep passage down the rocky height.” | |
