That traitor, who sees only with one eye, And holds the land, which some one here with me 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 Cried out: 66 Thou shalt remember Mosca also, Who said, alas! A thing done has an end!' "And death unto thy race," thereto I added ; Without If it were not that conscience reassures me, some further proof, even to recount, I truly saw, and still I seem to see it, A trunk without a head, walk in like manner And they were two in one, and one in two; How that can be, He knows who so ordains it. 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, 90 100 1:0 122 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 And David did with his accursed goadings, Because I parted persons so united, Parted do I now bear my brain, alas! From its beginning, which is in this trunk. Thus is observed in me the counterpoise." CANTO XXIX. THE many people and the divers wounds That they were wishful to stand still and weep; 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, I went, already making my reply, The sin which down below there costs so much." Thy thought from this time forward upon him; Pointing at thee, and threatening with his finger 15 So wholly at that time wast thou impeded Thou didst not look that way; so he departed." "O my Conductor, his own violent death, Which is not yet avenged for him,” I said, Upon the crag, which the next valley shows 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, And then more vivid was my power of sight Down tow'rds the bottom, where the ministress Of the high Lord, Justice infallible, Punishes forgers, which she here records. I do not think a sadder sight to see Was in Ægina the whole people sick, (When was the air so full of pestilence, 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 Shifted themselves along the dismal road. We step by step went onward without speech, Gazing upon and listening to the sick Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies. 49 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, "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, So vain a people as the Sienese? 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; Thou must remember, if I well descry thee, 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 had the name Learchus, And whirled him round, and dashed him on a rock; And she, with the other burthen, drowned herself ;And at the time when fortune downward hurled The Trojan's arrogance, that all things dared, When lifeless she beheld Polyxena, |