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• 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 XXIX

• The many people and unheard-of wounds
• had caused my eyes to be so drunk with tears,
• that fain they were to linger there and weep;
• but Virgil said: “At what art gazing still?
• Why is it that thine eyes still rest down there
• among the wretched mutilated shades?
• Thou didst not thus when in the other trenches;
• consider, then, if thou propose to count them,
• that this trench circles two-and-twenty miles,
• and that the moon is now beneath our feet;
• short is the time allowed us still, and more
• there is to see, than what thou seest here.”

• “If thou hadst heeded” I thereat replied,
• “the reason for my gazing there, thou wouldst,
• perhaps, have granted me a longer stay.”

• Meantime my Leader on his way was going,
• and I behind him moving, as I made
• my answer, adding: “In that hollow place,
• whereon I kept mine eyes so steadily,
• I think a spirit sprung from mine own blood
• bewails the fault so dearly paid for there.”

• Thereat my Teacher said: “Let not thy thoughts
• hereafter break on him; heed other things,
• and there let him remain; for at the foot
• of that small bridge I saw him point thee out,
• and with his finger fiercely threaten thee;
• Geri del Bello I then heard him called.
• So wholly wast thou then intent on him
• who formerly possessed Hautefort, that thou,
• till he departed, didst not look beyond.”

• “Leader,” said I, “his death by violence,
• which is not yet avenged for him by any
• who shared the shame, made him indignant; that,
• as I believe, was why he went away
• without addressing me; he thus has caused me
• to pity him the more.” We thus conversed
• till we had reached the first place on the crag,
• whence, had there been more light, the next ravine
• had to its very bottom been revealed.

• When we o’er Malebolgë’s final cloister
• were situated so, that its lay-brethren
• could be perceived by us, uncouth laments,
• which had their arrow-heads with pity barbed,
• so pierced me through and through, that with my hands
• I closed mine ears. Such pain as there would be,
• if from the hospitals of Val di Chiana,
• Maremma and Sardinia, from July
• until September, all diseases came

• together in one ditch; such was it here;
• and out of it there came a stench, like that
• which out of rotting limbs is wont to come.

• Adown the last bank of the lengthy crag
• we went, as ever to the left; and then
• much clearer was my vision toward the bottom,
• wherein the servant of the Most High Lord,
• Justice infallible, is punishing
• the falsifiers she recordeth here.

• I do not think it were a sadder sight
• to see the whole race in Aegina sick,
• when so suffused with poison was the air,
• that all the animals, down to the little worm,
• fell dead, and when the ancient race of people,
• according to what poets hold for truth,
• out of the seed of ants restored themselves;
• than now it was, to see the spirits languish
• down in that gloomy ditch in different heaps.
• One on his belly lay, and others leaned
• against each other’s shoulders, while another
• crawled on all fours along the dismal path.

• Without conversing, step by step we moved,
• both looking at and listening to the sick,
• who could not raise their bodies. Two of these
• I then saw sitting and against each other
• leaning, just as a pan against a pan
• is leaned to warm, and spotted o’er with scabs

• from head to foot; and never have I seen
• a curry-comb plied by a boy, for whom
• his master waited, or by one who kept
• awake against his will, as each oft plied
• upon himself the edge of finger-nails
• for the great rage of itching, which hath else
• no help; their nails kept scraping down their scabs,
• as doth a knife the scales of bream, or fish
• of other kinds equipped with larger scales.

• “O thou that with thy fingers flay’st thyself,”
• to one of them my Leader then began,
• “and who at times dost pincers make of them,
• pray tell us whether Latin any be
• of those in here, so may thy nails
• suffice thee for thy work eternally.”

• “We, both of us, whom thou beholdest here
• so spoiled, are Latin,” answered one who wept,
• “but who art thou that didst inquire of us?”

• My Leader thereupon said: “I am one
• who with this living man from ledge to ledge
• descend, and who propose to show him Hell.”

• Thereat the common back was broken up,
• and trembling each of them turned round toward me,
• with others who had heard him by rebound.
• Then my good Teacher drew close up to me,
• and said: “Say whatsoe’er thou wilt to them.”
• Hence, since he so had wished it, I began:

• “So may your memory never fly away
• from human minds in that first world of ours,
• but rather under many suns survive,
• pray tell me who ye are, and of what people;
• nor let your foul and loathsome punishment
• make you afraid to show yourselves to me.”

• “I of Arezzo was; and Albero
• da Siena had me burned;” one then replied,
• “but what I died for doth not bring me here.
• ’T is true I said to him, although in jest,
• that I knew how to raise me in the air;
• and he, who, curious, had but little sense,
• wished me to show that art to him; and only
• because I did not make him Daedalus,
• he had me burned by one, who treated him
• as son. But to the last trench of the ten
• Minos, who may not make mistakes, condemned me
• for the alchemy I practised in the world.”

• Then to the Poet I: “Now was there ever
• a people as vainglorious as the men
• of Siena? Surely not the French by far!”

• Whereat the other leprous one, who heard me,
• replied to what I said: “Excepting Stricca,
• who moderation knew in what he spent;
• and Niccolò, who was the first to find
• the costly use of cloves in gardens where
• such seed takes root; excepting, too,

• the company, on whom Càccia d’ Asciàn
• wasted his vineyard and great forest land,
• while d’ Abbagliato squandered all his sense.
• But so that thou mayst know who backs thee thus
• against the men of Siena, point thine eyes
• toward me, that well my face may answer thee;
• so shalt thou see that I ’m Capocchio’s shade,
• who metals falsified by alchemy;
• and thou, if well I see thee, shouldst recall
• how good an ape of nature I was once.”