| |
| ERE Nessus yet had reach’d the other bank, | |
| We enter’d on a forest, where no track | |
| Of steps had worn a way. Not verdant there | |
| The foliage, but of dusky hue; not light | |
| The boughs and tapering, but with knares deform’d | 5 |
| And matted thick: fruits there were none, but thorns | |
| Instead, with venom fill’d. Less sharp than these, | |
| Less intricate the brakes, wherein abide | |
| Those animals, that hate the cultured fields, | |
| Betwixt Corneto and Cecina’s stream. 1 | 10 |
| Here the brute harpies make their nest, the same | |
| Who from the Strophades the Trojan band | |
| Drove with dire boding o their future woe. | |
| Broad are their pennons, of the human form | |
| Their neck and countenance, arm’d with talons keen | 15 |
| The feet, and the huge belly fledged with wings. | |
| These sit and wail on the drear mystic wood. | |
| The kind instructor in these words began: | |
| “Ere further thou proceed, know thou art now | |
| I’ th’ second round, and shalt be, till thou come | 20 |
| Upon the horrid sand: look therefore well | |
| Around thee, and such things thou shalt behold, | |
| As would my speech discredit.” On all sides | |
| I heard sad plainings breathe, and none could see | |
| From whom they might have issued. In amaze | 25 |
| Fast bound I stood. He, as it seem’d, believed | |
| That I had thought so many voices came | |
| From some amid those thickets close conceal’d, | |
| And thus his speech resum’d: “If thou lop off | |
| A single twig from one of those ill plants, | 30 |
| The thought thou hast conceived shall vanish quite.” | |
| Thereat a little stretching forth my hand, | |
| From a great wilding gather’d I a branch, | |
| And straight the trunk exclaim’d: “Why pluck’st thou me?” | |
| Then, as the dark blood trickled down its side, | 35 |
| These words it added: “Wherefore tear’st me thus? | |
| Is there no touch of mercy in thy breast? | |
| Men once were we, that now are rooted here. | |
| Thy hand might well have spared us, had we been | |
| The souls of serpents.” As a brand yet green, | 40 |
| That burning at one end from the other sends | |
| A groaning sound, and hisses with the wind | |
| That forces out its way, so burst at once | |
| Forth from the broken splinter words and blood. | |
| I, letting fall the bough, remain’d as one | 45 |
| Assail’d by terror; and the sage replied: | |
| “If he, O injured spirit! could have believed | |
| What he hath seen but in my verse described, | |
| He never against thee had stretch’d his hand. | |
| But I, because the thing surpass’d belief, | 50 |
| Prompted him to this deed, which even now | |
| Myself I rue. But tell me, who thou wast; | |
| That, for this wrong to do thee some amends, | |
| In the upper world (for thither to return | |
| Is granted him) thy fame he may revive.” | 55 |
| “That pleasant word of thine,” the trunk replied, | |
| “Hath so inveigled me, that I from speech | |
| Cannot refrain, wherein if I indulge | |
| A little longer, in the snare detain’d, | |
| Count it not grievous. I it was, 2 who held | 60 |
| Both keys to Frederick’s heart, and turn’d the wards, | |
| Opening and shutting, with a skill so sweet, | |
| That besides me, into his inmost breast | |
| Scarce any other could admittance find. | |
| The faith I bore to my high charge was such, | 65 |
| It cost me the life-blood that warm’d my veins. | |
| The harlot, who ne’er turn’d her gloating eyes | |
| From Cæsar’s household, common vice and pest | |
| Of courts, ’gainst me inflamed the minds of all; | |
| And to Augustus they so spread the flame, | 70 |
| That my glad honours changed to bitter woes. | |
| My soul, disdainful and disgusted, sought | |
| Refuge in death from scorn, and I became, | |
| Just as I was, unjust toward myself. | |
| By the new roots, which fix this stem, I swear, | 75 |
| That never faith I broke my liege lord, | |
| Who merited such honour; and of you, | |
| If any to the world indeed return, | |
| Clear he from wrong my memory, that lies | |
| Yet prostrate under envy’s cruel blow.” | 80 |
| First somewhat pausing, till the mournful words | |
| Were ended, then to me the bard began: | |
| “Lose not the time; but speak, and of him ask, | |
| If more thou wish to learn.” Whence I replied: | |
| “Question thou him again of whatsoe’er | 85 |
| Will, as thou think’st, content me; for no power | |
| Have I to ask, such pity is at my heart.” | |
| He thus resumed: “So may he do for thee | |
| Freely what thou entreatest, as thou yet | |
| Be pleased, imprison’d spirit! to declare, | 90 |
| How in these gnarled joints the soul is tied; | |
| And whether any ever from such frame | |
| Be loosen’d, if thou canst, that also tell.” | |
| Thereat the trunk breathed hard, and the wind soon | |
| Changed into sounds articulate like these: | 95 |
| “Briefly ye shall be answer’d. When departs | |
| The fierce soul from the body, by itself | |
| Thence torn asunder, to the seventh gulf | |
| By Minos doom’d, into the wood it falls, | |
| No place assign’d, but wheresoever chance | 100 |
| Hurls it; there sprouting, as a grain of spelt, | |
| It rises to a sapling, growing thence | |
| A savage plant. The harpies, on its leaves | |
| Then feeding, cause both pain, and for the pain | |
| A vent to grief. We, as the rest, shall come | 105 |
| For our own spoils, yet not so that with them | |
| We may again be clad; for what a man | |
| Takes from himself it is not just he have. | |
| Here we perforce shall drag them; and throughout | |
| The dismal glade our bodies shall be hung, | 110 |
| Each on the wild thorn of his wretched shade.” | |
| Attentive yet to listen to the trunk | |
| We stood, expecting further speech, when us | |
| A noise surprised; as when a man perceives | |
| The wild boar and the hunt approach his place | 115 |
| Of station’d watch, who of the beasts and boughs | |
| Loud rustling round him hears. And lo! there came | |
| Two naked, torn with briers, in headlong flight, | |
| That they before them broke each fan o’ th’ wood. | |
| “Haste now,” the foremost cried, “now haste thee, death!” | 120 |
| The other, as seem’d, impatient of delay, | |
| Exclaiming, “Lano! 3 not so bent for speed | |
| Thy sinews, in the lists of Toppo’s field.” | |
| And then, for that perchance no longer breath | |
| Sufficed him, of himself and of a bush | 125 |
| One group he made. Behind them was the wood | |
| Full of black female mastiffs, gaunt and fleet, | |
| As greyhounds that have newly slipt the leash. | |
| On him, who squatted down, they stuck their fangs, | |
| And having rent him piecemeal bore away | 130 |
| The tortured limbs. My guide then seized my hand, | |
| And led me to the thicket, which in vain | |
| Mourn’d through its bleeding wounds: “O Giacomo | |
| Of Sant’ Andrea! 4 what avails it thee,” | |
| It cried, “that of me thou hast made thy screen? | 135 |
| For thy ill life, what blame on me recoils? | |
| When o’er it he had paused, my master spake: | |
| “Say who wast thou, that at so many points | |
| Breathest out with blood thy lamentable speech?” | |
| He answer’d: “O ye spirits! arrived in time | 140 |
| To spy the shameful havoc that from me | |
| My leaves hath sever’d thus, gather them up, | |
| And at the foot of their sad parent-tree | |
| Carefully lay them. In that city 5 I dwelt, | |
| Who for the Baptist her first patron changed, | 145 |
| Whence he for this shall cease not with his art | |
| To work her woe: and if there still remain’d not | |
| On Arno’s passage some faint glimpse of him, | |
| Those citizens, who rear’d once more her walls | |
| Upon the ashes left by Attila, | 150 |
| Had labor’d without profit of their toil. | |
| I slung the fatal noose 6 from my own roof.” | |
