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 XXXII

• If I had rhymes that were as harsh and hoarse
• as would be fitting for the dismal hole,
• on which lean all the other circling rocks,
• I ’d squeeze the juice of my conception out
• more fully; but because I have them not,
• not without fear do I resolve to speak;
• for to describe the bottom of the universe
• is not an enterprise wherewith to jest,
• nor for a tongue that says ‘mamma’ and ‘dad’;
• let, then, those Ladies give my verse their aid,
• who helped Amphion build the walls of Thebes,
• that from the facts the telling differ not.

• O rabble, that, ill-born beyond all people,
• are in a place, to speak of which is hard,
• far better had ye here been sheep or goats!

• When we were down within the gloomy well,
• beneath the Giant’s feet, though lower far,
• and I still gazing at its lofty wall,
• I heard one say to me: “Look where thou walkest!
• and see that with thy feet thou trample not
• the heads of us two wretched, weary brothers!”

• Thereat I turned around, and saw before me,
• and ’neath my feet, a lake which, being frozen,
• seemed to be made of glass and not of water.

• The Danube up in Austria never made
• so thick a veil in winter for its course,
• nor yonder ’neath the cold sky did the Don,
• as what was here; for even if Tambernich
• had fallen on it, or had Pietrapana,
• it had not cracked even at its very edge.

• And as a frog remains, to do its croaking,
• with muzzle out of water, in the season
• when oft the peasant dreams that she is gleaning;
• even so, as far as where one’s shame is shown,
• the woeful shades were livid in the ice,
• as to the notes of storks they set their teeth.
• Each kept his face turned downward; from his mouth,
• the cold, and from his eyes, his saddened heart
• provides itself a witness in their midst.

• When I had gazed around a while, I looked
• down at my feet, and two I saw with heads
• so close together, that their hair was mixed.

• “Ye that are pressing thus your breasts together,
• say who ye are,” said I. They bent their necks,
• and when their faces had been raised toward me,
• their eyes, moist only inwardly before,
• gushed upward though the lids; whereat the cold,
• binding the tears between them, closed them up.

• A clamp ne’er bound so tightly board to board;
• whereat, so great the anger mastering them,
• like two he-goats, they butted one another.

• And one who had, by reason of the cold,
• lost both his ears, with face still lowered, said:
• “Why dost thou mirror thee so much on us?
• If thou wouldst know who those two near thee are,
• the valley from which thy Bisenzio flows
• belonged to their sire Albert and to them.
• They issued from one body; and thou canst search
• through all Caìna, but thou ’lt never find
• a shade more worthy to be fixed in ice;
• not he, whose breast and shadow broken were
• by one same blow at Arthur’s hand; nor yet
• Focaccia; nor this fellow here, whose head
• so blocks me, that I cannot see beyond,
• and who was Sàssol Mascheroni called;
• who he was, thou, if Tuscan, now knowst well.
• And that thou put me to no further speech,
• know, then, that I was Camiciòn de’ Pazzi,
• and that, to excuse me, I await Carlìn.”

• Thereafter I beheld a thousand faces
• made doglike by the cold; hence frozen ponds
• cause me to shudder now, and always will.

• And now, while toward that center we were moving,
• whereto all heavy objects gravitate,
• and I was trembling in the eternal cold;

• I know not whether it were will, or fate,
• or chance; but as I walked among the heads,
• hard in the face of one I struck my foot.
• Weeping he scolded: “Wherefore dost thou smite me?
• Unless thou comest to increase the vengeance
• for Mont’ Aperti, why dost thou molest me?”

• And I said: “Teacher, wait now for me here,
• that I through him may issue from a doubt;
• then at thy pleasure shalt thou hurry me.”

• My Leader stopped; and I to him, who still
• was savagely blaspheming, said: “What sort
• of man art thou, that scoldest people so?”

• “Now who art thou, that goest” he replied,
• “through Antenora, smiting cheeks so roughly,
• that it would be too much, wert thou alive?”

• “I am alive, and it may profit thee”
• was my reply, “for me to place thy name,
• if fame thou ask, among my other notes.”

• And he: “I crave the contrary; away
• with thee, and bother me no more; for ill
• dost thou know how to flatter in this bog!”

• Thereat I seized him by the nape, and said:
• “It needs must be that thou reveal thy name,
• or that no hair remain upon thee here!”

• Then he to me: “Though thou pull out my hair,
• I ’ll neither say, nor show thee, who I am,
• fall thou upon my head a thousand times.”

• I had his hair wrapped round my hand already,
• and more than one shock had I plucked from him,
• while he was barking, with his eyes turned down;
• when here another cried: “What ails thee, Bocca?
• Is making noise with jawbones not enough,
• unless thou bark? What devil touches thee?”

• “Henceforth” said I, “I would not have thee speak,
• perfidious traitor; for true news of thee
• I ’ll carry with me to thy lasting shame.”

• “Begone, and tell whate’er thou wilt;” he answered,
• but be not silent, if thou issue hence,
• of him who had just now his tongue so ready.
• He here bewails the money of the French;
• ‘Him of Duera’ thou canst say, ‘I saw
• where cold the days are for the sinful folk.’
• And if thou shouldst be asked who else was there,
• thou hast beside thee him of Beccherìa,
• who had his gorget cut in two by Florence.
• Gianni de’ Soldanier is further on,
• I think, with Ganellon, and Tebaldello,
• who, while its people slept, unlocked Faenza.”

• From him we had departed now, when two
• I saw, so frozen in a single hole,
• that one man’s head served as the other’s cap.
• And as because of hunger bread is eaten,
• even so the upper on the other set
• his teeth, where to the nape the brain is joined.

• Not otherwise did Tydeus gnaw the temples
• of Menalippus out of spite, than this one
• was gnawing at the skull and other parts.

• “O thou that showest by a sign so beastly
• hatred toward him thou eatest, tell me why,”
• said I to him, “on this express condition,
• that shouldst thou rightfully of him complain,
• I, knowing who ye are, and that one’s sin,
• may quit thee for it in the world above,
• if that, wherewith I speak, be not dried up.”