One drop of water now, alas! I crave.
The rills, that glitter down the grassy slopes
Of Casentino, making fresh and soft

The banks whereby they glide to Arno's stream,
Stand ever in my view; and not in vain;

For more the pictured semblance dries me up,
Much more than the disease, which makes the flesh
Desert these shrivel'd cheeks. So from the place,
Where I transgress'd, stern justice urging me,
Takes means to quicken more my laboring sighs.
There is Romena, where I falsified

The metal with the Baptist's form imprest,
For which on earth I left my body burnt.
But if I here might see the sorrowing soul
Of Guido, Alessandro, or their brother,

For Branda's limpid spring I would not change
The welcome sight. One is e'en now within,
If truly the mad spirits tell, that round
Are wandering. But wherein besteads me that?
My limbs are fetter'd. Were I but so light,
That I each hundred years might move one inch,
I had set forth already on this path,
Seeking him out amidst the shapeless crew,
Although eleven miles it wind, not less
Than half of one across. They brought me down
Among this tribe; induced by them, I stamp'd
The florens with three carats of alloy."

"Who are that abject pair," I next inquired,
"That closely bounding thee upon thy right
Lie smoking, like a hand in winter steep'd

In the chill stream?"-" When to this gulf I dropp'd,"
He answer'd, "here I found them; since that hour
They have not turn'd, nor ever shall, I ween,

Till time hath run his course. One is that dame,
The false accuser of the Hebrew youth;

6

Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy.

Romena, a part of Casentino. 4 A fountain in Siena,

The floren was a coin that ought to have had twenty-four carats of pure gold. Villani relates that it

an

was first used at Florence in 1252, era of great prosperity for the republic; before which time their most valuable coinage was of silver. • Potiphar's wife.

Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out,

In such a cloud upsteam'd." When that he heard,
One, gall'd perchance to be so darkly named,

With clench'd hand smote him on the braced paunch,
That like a drum resounded: but forthwith

Adamo smote him on the face, the blow

Returning with his arm, that seem'd as hard.
"Though my o'erweighty limbs have ta'en from me
The power to move," said he, "I have an arm
At liberty for such employ." To whom
Was answer'd: "When thou wentest to the fire,
Thou hadst it not so ready at command;

Then readier when it coin'd the impostor gold."
And thus the dropsied:

66

Ay, now speak'st thou true: But there thou gavest not such true testimony, When thou wast question'd of the truth, at Troy." "If I spake false, thou falsely stamp'dst the coin," Said Sinon; "I am here for but one fault,

And thou for more than any imp beside."

66

Remember," he replied, O perjured one! The horse remember, that did teem with death; And all the world be witness to thy guilt."

"To thine," return'd the Greek, "witness the thirst Whence thy tongue cracks, witness the fluid mound Rear'd by thy belly up before thine eyes,

A mass corrupt." To whom the coiner thus:

66

Thy mouth gapes wide as ever to let pass

Its evil saying. Me if thirst assails,

Yet I am stuft with moisture. Thou art parch'd:
Pains rack thy head: no urging wouldst thou need
To make thee lap Narcissus' mirror up."

66

I was all fix'd to listen, when my guide
Admonish'd: Now beware. A little more,
And I do quarrel with thee." I perceived
How angrily he spake, and toward him turn'd
With shame so poignant, as remember'd yet
Confounds me. As a man that dreams of harm
Befallen him, dreaming wishes it a dream,
And that which is, desires as if it were not;
Such then was I, who, wanting power to speak,

Wish'd to excuse myself, and all the while

Excused me, though unweeting that I did.

"More grievous fault than thine has been, less shame," My master cried, "might expiate. Therefore cast

All sorrow from thy soul; and if again

Chance bring thee, where like conference is held,
Think I am ever at thy side. To hear
Such wrangling is a joy for vulgar minds."

CANTO XXXI

ARGUMENT.-The Poets, following the sound of a loud horn, are led by it to the ninth circle, in which there are four rounds, one enclosed within the other, and containing as many sorts of traitors; but the present Canto shows only that the circle is encompassed with Giants, one of whom, Antæus, takes them both in his arms and places them at the bottom of the circle.

T

HE very tongue whose keen reproof before

Had wounded me, that either cheek was stain'd,
Now minister'd my cure. So have I heard,

Achilles' and his father's javelin caused

Pain first, and then the boon of health restored.

Turning our back upon the vale of woe,

We cross'd the encircled mound in silence. There
Was less than day and less than night, that far
Mine eye advanced not: but I heard a horn
Sounded so loud, the peal it rang had made
The thunder feeble. Following its course
The adverse way, my strained eyes were bent
On that one spot. So terrible a blast
Orlando' blew not, when that dismal rout
O'erthrew the host of Charlemain, and quench'd
His saintly warfare. Thitherward not long
My head was raised, when many a lofty tower
Methought I spied. Master," said I, "what land

66

1" When Charlemain with all his peerage fell at Fontarabia." Milton, "Paradise Lost," b. i. 586. See Warton's "Hist. of Eng. Poetry," vol. i. sect. iii. p. 132. is the horn which Orlando

"This won

from the giant Jatmund, and which, as Turpin and the Islandic bards report, was endued with magical power, and might be heard at the distance of twenty miles." See the Paradise, Canto xviii.

5-VOL. XX

HC

"Too long a space

Is this?" He answer'd straight:
Of intervening darkness has thine eye

To traverse: thou hast therefore widely err'd
In thy imagining. Thither arrived

Thou well shalt see, how distance can delude
The sense. A little therefore urge thee on."
Then tenderly he caught me by the hand;

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"Yet know," said he, ere farther we advance,
That it less strange may seem, these are not towers,
But giants. In the pit they stand immersed,
Each from his navel downward, round the bank."
As when a fog disperseth gradually,

Our vision traces what the mist involves
Condensed in air; so piercing through the gross
And gloomy atmosphere, as more and more
We near'd toward the brink, mine error fled
And fear came o'er me. As with circling round
Of turrets, Montereggion' crowns his walls;
E'en thus the shore, encompassing the abyss,
Was turreted with giants, half their length
Uprearing, horrible, whom Jove from Heaven
Yet threatens, when his muttering thunder rolls.
Of one already I descried the face,

Shoulders, and breast, and of the belly huge
Great part, and both arms down along his ribs.
All-teeming Nature, when her plastic hand
Left framing of these monsters, did display
Past doubt her wisdom, taking from mad War
Such slaves to do his bidding; and if she
Repent her not of the elephant and whale,
Who ponders well confesses her therein
Wiser and more discreet; for when brute force
And evil will are back'd with subtlety,
Resistance none avails. His visage seem'd
In length and bulk, as doth the pine3 that tops

A castle near Siena.

"The pine." The large pine of bronze, which once ornamented the top of the mole of Adrian, afterwards decorated the top of the belfry of St. Peter; and having (according to Buti) been thrown down

by lightning, it was transferred to the place where it now is, in the Pope's garden, by the side of the great corridor of Belvedere. In the time of our Poet, the pine was then either on the belfry or on the steps of St. Peter's.

Saint Peter's Roman fane; and the other bones
Of like proportion, so that from above

The bank, which girdled him below, such height
Arose his stature, that three Friezelanders
Had striven in vain to reach but to his hair.
Full thirty ample palms was he exposed

Downward from whence a man his garment loops.
“Raphel* bai ameth, sabi almì:”

So shouted his fierce lips, which sweeter hymns
Became not; and my guide address'd him thus:
"O senseless spirit! let thy horn for thee
Interpret: therewith vent thy rage, if rage
Or other passion wring thee. Search thy neck,
There shalt thou find the belt that binds it on.
Spirit confused! lo, on thy mighty breast
Where hangs the baldrick!" Then to me he spake:
“He doth accuse himself. Nimrod is this,
Through whose ill counsel in the world no more
One tongue prevails. But pass we on, nor waste
Our words; for so each language is to him,
As his to others, understood by none."

Then to the leftward turning sped we forth,
And at a sling's throw found another shade
Far fiercer and more huge. I cannot say
What master hand had girt him; but he held
Behind the right arm fetter'd, and before,
The other, with a chain, that fasten'd him
From the neck down; and five times round his form
Apparent met the wreathed links. "This proud one
Would of his strength against almighty Jove
Make trial," said my guide: "whence he is thus
Requited: Ephialtes him they call.

Great was his prowess, when the giants brought
Fear on the gods: those arms, which then he plied,
Now moves he never." Forthwith I return'd:
"Fain would I, if 't were possible, mine eyes,
Of Briareus immeasurable, gain'd

Experience next." He answered: "Thou shalt see

• Unmeaning sounds, to express the confusion at the building of Babel.