That traitor, who sees only with one eye, And holds the land, which some one here with me Will make them come unto a parley with him; Then will do so, that to Focara's wind They will not stand in need of vow or prayer." If thou wouldst have me bear up news of thee, Of one of his companions, and his mouth With tongue asunder in his windpipe slit, The stumps uplifting through the murky air, Who said, alas! 'A thing done has an end !' Which was an ill seed for the Tuscan people' "And death unto thy race," thereto I added; Whence he, accumulating woe on woe, Departed, like a person sad and crazed. But I remained to look upon the crowd; And saw a thing which I should be afraid, That good companion which emboldens man I truly saw, and still I seem to see it, A trunk without a head walk in like manner As walked the others of the mournful herd. And by the hair it held the head dissevered, Hung from the hand in fashion of a lantern, And they were two in one, and one in two; When it was come close to the bridge's foot, It lifted high its arm with all the head, To bring more closely unto us its words, BIBLIOTHÈQUE S. J. Les Fontaines 60 - CHANT Which were : "Behold now the sore penalty, Thou, who dost breathing go the dead beholding; And so that thou may carry news of me, Know that Bertram de Born am I, the same I made the father and the son rebellious; Achitophel not more with Absalom Parted do I now bear my brain, alas! +30 135 140 CANTO XXIX. THE many people and the divers wounds Consider, if to count them thou believest, Henceforth the time allotted us is brief, And more is to be seen than what thou seest." "If thou hadst," I made answer thereupon, "Attended to the cause for which I looked, Perhaps a longer stay thou wouldst have pardoned." Meanwhile my Guide departed, and behind him I think a spirit of my blood laments The sin which down below there costs so much." Then said the Master: "Be no longer broken Thy thought from this time forward upon him; For him I saw below the little bridge, Pointing at thee, and threatening with his finger So wholly at that time wast thou impeded By him who formerly held Altaforte, Which is not yet avenged for him," I said, Upon the crag, which the next valley shows What pain would be, if from the hospitals Of Valdichiana, 'twixt July and September, All the diseases in one moat were gathered, Such was it here, and such a stench came from it We had descended on the furthest bank From the long crag, upon the left hand still, I do not think a sadder sight to see Was in Ægina the whole people sick, The animals, down to the little worm, All fell, and afterwards the ancient people, Were from the seed of ants restored again,) Than was it to behold through that dark valley This on the belly, that upon the back One of the other lay, and others crawling We step by step went onward without speech, Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies. I saw two sitting leaned against each other, By stable-boy for whom his master waits, As every one was plying fast the bite Of nails upon himself, for the great rage And the nails downward with them dragged the scab, "O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee," "And makest of them pincers now and then, Tell me if any Latian is with those Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee "Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest, Both of us here," one weeping made reply ; And trembling each one turned himself to me, Saying: " Say unto them whate'er thou wishest." "So may your memory not steal away In the first world from out the minds of men, Let not your foul and loathsome punishment "I of Arezzo was," one made reply, "And Albert of Siena had me burned; That I could rise by flight into the air, But unto the last Bolgia of the ten, For alchemy, which in the world I practised, Minos, who cannot err, has me condemned." And to the Poet said I: "Now was ever So vain a people as the Sienese? Not for a certainty the French by far." Replied unto my speech: "Taking out Stricca, And Niccolò, who the luxurious use Of cloves discovered earliest of all Within that garden where such seed takes root; And taking out the band, among whom squandered Caccia d'Ascian his vineyards and vast woods, And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered! But, that thou know who thus doth second thee Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eye Tow'rds me, so that my face well answer thee, And thou shalt see I am Capocchio's shade, Who metals falsified by alchemy; Thou must remember, if I well descry thee, How I a skilful ape of nature was.” CANTO XXX. 'Twas at the time when Juno was enraged, For Semele, against the Theban blood, As she already more than once had shown, That, seeing his own wife with children twain Seizing the first, who bad the name Learchus, And whirled him round, and dashed him on a rock; And at the time when fortune downward hurled The Trojan's arrogance, that all things dared, When lifeless she beheld Polyxena, |