The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Ave Dante
• Preface
• Inferno I
• Inferno Ii
• Inferno Iii
• Inferno Iv
• Inferno V
• Inferno Vi
• Inferno Vii
• Inferno Viii
• Inferno Ix
• Inferno X
• Inferno Xi
• Inferno Xii
• Inferno Xiii
• Inferno Xiv
• Inferno Xv
• Inferno Xvi
• Inferno Xvii
• Inferno Xviii
• Inferno Xix
• Inferno Xx
• Inferno Xxi
• Inferno Xxii
• Inferno Xxiii
• Inferno Xxiv
• Inferno Xxv
• Inferno Xxvi
• Inferno Xxvii
• Inferno Xxviii
• Inferno Xxix
• Inferno Xxx
• Inferno Xxxi
• Inferno Xxxii
• Inferno Xxxiii
• Inferno Xxxiv

INFERNO XX

• About strange punishments must I make verses,
• and furnish matter for the twentieth song
• of this first lay, which treats of those submerged.

• Already had I wholly given myself
• to looking down at its uncovered bottom,
• which with the tears of agony was bathed;
• when people in the great round trench I saw
• come weeping silently, and at the pace,
• at which in this world litanies advance.

• Then, as my sight fell on them lower down,
• wondrously twisted each of them appeared
• between the chin and where the chest begins;
• for toward his loins his face was turned around,
• and backward it behooved him to advance,
• because of foresight they had been deprived.

• By palsy some, perhaps, may thus have been
• entirely turned around, but I ’ve not seen it,
• nor do I think there ever was one such.

• So may God let thee, Reader, gather fruit
• from this thy reading, think now for thyself
• how I could ever keep my own face dry,

• when at close range I saw our human image
• so twisted, that the weeping of the eyes
• along the fissure bathed the back. Indeed,
• as on a rock of that hard crag I leaned,
• I wept so, that my Escort said to me:
• “Art thou still foolish as the others are?
• Here liveth piety when wholly dead
• is pity. Who, then, guiltier is than he
• who lets his feelings judge Divine Decrees?

• Lift, lift thy head, and see the man for whom,
• before the Trojans’ eyes, the earth was opened!
• whence all cried: ‘Whither art thou rushing now,
• Amphiaràus? Why quittest thou the war?’
• and he ceased not from plunging headlong down
• to Minos, who lays hold on every one.
• See how he makes a bosom of his shoulders;
• because he wished to see too far ahead,
• he looks behind, and backward goes his way.

• Behold Tiresias there, who changed his looks,
• when female he became, from being male,
• his members being each and all transformed;
• and afterward he needs must strike again
• the two entwining serpents with his rod,
• ere he the plumage of a male regained.

• He who to that one’s belly turns his back,
• is Aruns, who in Luni’s mountain quarries,
• where toils the Carrarese who dwells below,

• among white marbles had as dwelling-place
• a cave, from which his view was not cut off,
• when at the stars he gazed, or at the sea.

• And she who, yonder, with dishevelled locks
• covers the breasts which thou dost not behold,
• and has on that side all her hairy skin,
• was Manto, who first searched through many lands,
• then settled in the place where I was born;
• thereof I ’d have thee hear me speak a little.

• After her father had from life departed,
• and Bacchus’ city had become enslaved,
• she wandered long about the world. Up there
• in lovely Italy, beneath the Alps
• which o’er the Tyrol lock out Germany,
• there lies a lake which is Benàco called.
• From o’er a thousand springs, I trow, ’tween Garda
• and Val Camònica, the Pennine Alp
• is bathed by waters which therein find rest.
• A midway place there is, where Trento’s shepherd,
• and he of Brescia, and the Veronese,
• might each his blessing give, if there he went.
• Peschiera next, a fair and mighty fortress,
• and fit to face both Bergamasks and Brescians,
• sits where the shore lies lowest round about.
• There all that in Benàco’s spacious lap
• cannot be held, flows out of it perforce,
• and down through verdant pastures forms a stream.

• When once its water gathers head to run,
• no more Benàco, Mincio is its name,
• till at Govèrnolo it joins the Po.
• Not long its course, before it finds low ground,
• o’er which it spreads, and, making it a marsh,
• is wont at times to be unsound in summer.

• Passing that way, the cruel virgin saw
• a region in the middle of the fen,
• untilled and naked of inhabitants.
• There, to escape all human fellowship,
• and work her arts, she settled with her slaves,
• and lived, and there she left her empty body.
• Thereafter men, who all around were scattered,
• collected in that place, which was a strong one,
• because it had a fen on every side.
• O’er those dead bones of hers they built a town;
• then, after her, who first picked out the site,
• they called it Mantua, with no other lot.
• The people in it were more numerous once,
• before the foolishness of Casalodi
• had been deceived by Pinamonte’s guile.
• I charge thee, then, if e’er thou hear it said
• my town had its beginning otherwise,
• permit no falsehood to defraud the truth.”

• “Thy statements, Teacher, are so sure to me,”
• said I, “and take such hold upon my faith,
• that those of others would be burnt-out coals.

• But tell me if among these passing people
• thou seest any one deserving note;
• for my mind now is wholly bent on that.”

• He told me then: “The one who from his cheeks
• extends his beard across his swarthy shoulders,
• an augur was, when Greece lacked males so much,
• that for her cradles only few were left;
• ’t was he who set, with Chalcas’ aid, at Aulis
• the time to cut the fleet’s first rope. His name
• Eurỳpylus, and in a certain place
• he thus is called by my high Tragedy;
• this thou know’st well, who knowest all of it.
• That other one, so thin about his flanks,
• was Michael Scot, who surely understood
• the artful game of magical deceits.
• Guido Bonatti see; and see Asdente,
• who wishes now that he had given heed
• to cord and leather, but too late repents.
• See the sad women who abandoned needles,
• spindles and shuttles, to become diviners;
• these wrought their spells with herbs and images.

• But now come on, for Cain is with his thorns
• holding the bounds of both the hemispheres,
• and plays upon the waves below Seville,
• and round already was the moon last night;
• thou surely must recall it, since at times,
• it harmed thee not, when in the dark wood’s depths.”

• Thus he to me, as, meanwhile, on we went.