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 XXIV

• When in the youthful season of the year
• the sun beneath Aquarius warms his locks,
• while southward now the nights pursue their way;
• and when the hoar-frost draws upon the ground
• the counterfeit of her white sister’s face,
• though shortly lasts the temper of her pen;
• the peasant, lacking provender, gets up,
• looks out, and, seeing all the country white,
• slaps himself on the thigh, returns in doors,
• and walking to and fro, laments, poor wretch,
• not knowing what to do; then later on
• returning out again, recovers hope,
• on seeing that the world has shortly changed
• its face; and, taking down his shepherd-staff,
• out to their feeding drives his tender sheep.

• Even thus my Teacher filled me with dismay,
• when I beheld such trouble in his face;
• thus, too, the plaster quickly reached the wound;
• for when we had attained the ruined bridge,
• my Leader turned to me with that sweet look,
• which at the Mountain’s foot I first perceived.

• First having well surveyed the ruined arch,
• after some counsel taken with himself,
• his arms he opened, and took hold of me.
• And like a man who ponders while he acts,
• and always seems to look ahead; ev’n so,
• while upward to the top of one great rock
• he pushed me, he sought out another crag,
• and said: “Take hold of that one next, but first
• see whether it be fit to bear thy weight.”

• No path was this for one who wore a cloak,
• since scarcely could we two, though he was light,
• and I was pushed, ascend from rock to rock.
• And had the slope on that bank not been shorter,
• than on the other, I know not of him,
• but I would surely have been overcome;
• but since the whole of Malebolgë slopes
• down to the opening of the lowest well,
• such is the nature of each trench’s banks,
• that one is high, and low the following one;
• and yet we reached at length the ridge above,
• from which the crag’s last rock projects.
• My breath was so exhausted from my lungs,
• when up at last, that I could go no further;
• nay, on arriving I sat down at once.

• “Thus, henceforth, must thou rid thyself of sloth,”
• my Teacher said; “for one attains not fame,
• sitting on cushions, or ’neath canopies;

• and he that lives without attaining it,
• leaveth on earth such traces of himself,
• as smoke doth in the air, or foam in water.
• Therefore get up! O’ercome thy troubled breath
• with that soul-energy, which wins all fights,
• unless it sink beneath its body’s weight!
• A longer stairway must be climbed; ’t is not
• enough that these stairs have been left; if, then,
• thou understand me, let it profit thee.”

• I thereupon arose, and showed myself
• better equipped with breath than I had felt,
• and said: “Go on, for I am strong and bold!”

• We took the pathway up along the crag,
• which rocky was, narrow and hard to climb,
• and steeper far than was the one before.
• Not to seem weak, I talked as on I went;
• this from the next trench caused a voice to come,
• which was incapable of forming words.
• Though I was on the summit of the arch
• which crosses here, I know not what it said;
• but moved to anger seemed the one who spoke.
• Downward I looked, and yet my living eyes
• could not attain the bottom for the dark;
• hence, “Teacher, try to reach the following ridge,”
• said I, “and let us from the wall descend,
• for as I hear, but do not understand,
• so, looking down from hence, I make out nothing.”

• “No other answer give I thee,” he said,
• “save that of action; for a fair request
• ought to be met by deeds without a word.”

• We climbed down from the bridge’s further head,
• where to the eighth embankment it is joined,
• and then the trench was clearly shown to me;
• and in it I beheld a frightful throng
• of snakes, and of so weird a kind, that still
• the memory of them freezes up my blood.

• Let Libya and her sand no longer boast;
• for though she breed chelỳdri, jàculi,
• with cenchri, phàreae and àmphisbaenae,
• ne’er with all Ethiopia did she show,
• nor e’en with what above the Red Sea lies,
• either so many or such evil plagues.
• Among this cruel and most dismal swarm
• people were running, nude and terrified,
• and with no hope of hole or heliotrope.
• Their hands were bound behind their back with snakes,
• whose tail and head were thrust between their loins,
• and tied together in a knot in front.

• Then lo, a serpent hurled himself at one,
• who near our bank was standing, and transfixed him
• there where the neck is to the shoulders joined.
• Never were o or i so quickly written,
• as he took fire, and, burning up, must needs
• turn wholly into ashes as he fell;

• whereat, though thus destroyed upon the ground,
• the dust, assembling of its own accord,
• turned instantly into the self-same man.

• So likewise, as great sages have declared,
• the Phoenix dies, and then is born again,
• as she approaches her five-hundredth year;
• she feeds through life on neither herbs or grain,
• but on amòmum only and incense-tears;
• her final swaddling bands are nard and myrrh.

• And as is he who falls, nor knoweth how,
• by demon force, which pulls him to the ground,
• or other inhibition binding man,
• and who, on getting up again, looks round
• wholly bewildered by the great distress
• which he has felt, and, as he looks, heaves sighs;
• such was that sinner, after he had risen.
• O Power of God, how truly just thou art,
• that in revenge dost deal such blows as these!

• Thereat my Leader asked him who he was,
• and he replied: “Into this wild ravine
• I rained from Tuscany not long ago.
• Mule that I was, a beast’s life, not a man’s,
• I liked; I ’m Vanni Fucci, called the Beast;
• for me Pistoia was a worthy den.”

• Then “Tell him not to slip away,” I said,
• “and ask what fault thrust him down here; for I
• once saw in him a man of blood and strife.”

• The sinner then, who understood, feigned not,
• but turned toward me both mind and face, and said,
• as with a sudden shame he colored up:
• “That thou hast caught me in the misery
• in which thou see’st me, gives me greater pain
• than that which took me from the other life.
• I can’t refuse what thou dost ask of me.
• I ’m placed thus low, because ’t was I who robbed
• the vestry known for its fair ornaments;
• a deed once falsely put upon another.
• But now, lest thou enjoy this sight of me,
• if thou art ever out of these dark lands,
• thine ears to my announcement ope, and hear:
• Pistoia first despoils herself of Neri;
• then Florence changes folk and government.
• From Val di Magra Mars draws forth a bolt
• by turbid clouds enveloped; next, with wild
• and cruel storm, a battle will be fought
• upon the Picene Plain; then suddenly
• the bolt will cleave the mist in such a way,
• that every Bianco will thereby be wounded.
• And this I ’ve said, that it may give thee pain!”