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The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. The Italian Text with a Translation in English Blank Verse and a Commentary by Courtney Langdon, vol. 1 (Inferno) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1918).

Author: Dante Alighieri
Translator: Courtney Langdon

Part of: The Divine Comedy, in 3 vols. (Langdon trans.)

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INFERNO XXI

The Eighth Circle. Fraud

The Fifth Trench. Corrupt Politicians

Speaking of other things my Comedy
cares not to sing, we thus from bridge to bridge
moved on, and, when upon the summit, stopped,
in order to behold the next ravine
of Malebòlgë, and the next vain cries;
and I beheld it wonderfully dark.

And just such sticky pitch as that which boils
in the Venetians’ Arsenal in winter,
for calking up again the unsound ships,
which cannot then be sailed; — instead of which,
as one a new one builds, one plugs the ribs
of that which many voyages has made;
one hammers at the stern, and at the prow another;
one fashions oars, another cordage twists,
while still another mends a jib or mainsail; —
such was the coarse, dense pitch, which, not by fire,
but by an art divine, boiled there below,
and limed the bank on every side. I saw
the pitch, but nothing in it, save the bubbles
the boiling raised, and that the whole of it
kept swelling up, and settling back compressed.

While I was gazing fixedly down yonder,
my Leader cried to me: “Beware, beware!”
and drew me to himself from where I was.
I then turned round, as one who longs to see
the thing which it behooves him to escape,
and who, when by a sudden fear unmanned,
although he sees, delays not his departure;
and I perceived behind us a black devil
come running up along the rocky crag.

Ah, how ferocious in his looks he was,
and in his actions how severe he seemed,
with wings outspread, and light upon his feet!
His shoulder, which was sharp and high, was loaded
with both a sinner’s haunches, whom he held
clutched tightly by the sinews of his feet.

“O Malebranche,” from our bridge he cried,
“here ’s one of Santa Zita’s Ancients! Put him
beneath, for I ’m for more of them returning
to that town which I have well stocked therewith;
there, save Bonturo, every one ’s a grafter;
a ‘No’ for money there becomes a ‘Yes.’”

He hurled him down, and o’er the rugged crag
returned; and never was a mastif loosed
with so much hurry to pursue a thief.

The other sank, and then rose doubled up;
those fiends, though, who were sheltered by the bridge,
cried: “Here the Holy Face availeth not!

One here swims otherwise than in the Serchio!
If, therefore, thou dost not desire our hooks,
protrude not from the surface of the pitch.”

They pricked him then with o’er a hundred prongs,
and said: “Here under cover must thou dance,
that, if thou canst, thou mayst thieve secretly.”
Not otherwise do cooks have scullions plunge
the meat with hooks into the cauldron’s midst,
to hinder it from floating on its surface.

Thereat my kindly Teacher said to me:
“That here thy presence be not known, crouch down
behind a rock, which may avail to screen thee;
and be not thou afraid, for any harm
that may be done to me, who know these things,
for I in frays like this have been before.”

He then passed on beyond the bridge’s head,
and when the sixth embankment had been reached,
he had to show assurance in his face.
With just the storm and fury wherewith dogs
break out and rush upon a poor old man,
who stops and begs at once from where he is;
from ’neath the little bridge those devils issued,
and turned against him all their grappling hooks;
but he cried out: “Be none of you malicious!
Before your grappling hooks take hold of me,
let one of you advance, and hear me speak;
then take ye counsel as to grappling me.”

Then all cried out: “Let Malacoda go!”
Thereat one started, while the rest kept still,
and, as he came, said: “What does this avail him?”

“Dost thou think, Malacoda,” said my Teacher,
“that, as thou seest, I have hither come,
safe until now from all your hindrances,
unhelped by Will Divine and favoring fate?
Let us go on, for it is willed in Heaven
that I should show another this wild road.”

Thereat his pride received so great a fall,
that at his feet he dropped his grappling hook,
and to the rest said: “Let him not be wounded.”

My Leader thereupon cried out to me:
“Thou that among the bridge’s broken rocks
art crouching, safely now regain my side.”

I therefore moved, and quickly came to him;
then all the fiends advanced so far, I feared
they would not keep their word. Even thus I once
saw infantry, who, under pledge of safety,
were from Caprona coming forth, afraid,
when ’mong so many foes they saw themselves.
Then wholly to my Leader’s side I drew,
nor from their faces, which did not look good,
did I remove my eyes. For as their prongs
they lowered, one fiend to another said:
“Wouldst thou that I should touch him on his rump?”
and they replied: “Yes, see thou nick it for him!”

But that fiend, who was with my Leader talking,
turned round at once, and said to him: “Keep still,
keep still there, Scarmiglionë!” Then to us:
“Further advance along this present crag
can not be made, because the sixth arch yonder
lies wholly shattered on the ground below;
but if it please you still to go ahead,
go on along this ridge; there is near by
another crag which furnishes a path.
Than this hour five hours later yesterday,
twelve hundred, six and sixty years had passed,
since here the path was broken. I am sending
some of my company in that direction,
to see if any yonder air themselves;
go on with them, for they will not be bad.”

“Step forward, Alichino, and Calcabrina,”
he then began to say, “thou, too, Cagnazzo;
and let old Barbariccia guide the ten.
Have Libicocco go, and Draghignazzo;
tusked Ciriatto, too, and Graffiacane,
with Farfarello and crazy Rubicante.
Search round about the boiling birdlime pitch;
let these be safe as far as that next crag,
which all unbroken goes across the dens.”

“Oh, Teacher, what is this I see?” said I.
“If thou know how, pray let us go alone,
for I request no escort for myself.

If thou as wary art as thou art wont,
dost thou not notice how they gnash their teeth,
and with their eyebrows threaten us with woe?”

And he to me: “I would not have thee frightened;
let them grin on, then, as they like, for that
they ’re doing at the wretches who are boiled.”

They wheeled, and moved along the left bank then;
but not till each, as signal toward their leader,
had first thrust out his tongue between his teeth,
and he had of his rump a trumpet made.