Classic Poem

CANTO XXVIII

Who even with words untrammelled, though 'twere told
Over and over, could tell full the tale
Of blood and wounds before me now unrolled?
Truly there is no tongue that could avail,
Seeing that our speech and memory are small
And for so great a comprehension fail.
Nay, were it possible to assemble all
Who of old upon Apulia's fated soil
Wailed their spilt blood and endless funeral
Made by the Trojans or in that long moil
Of war which heaped, as Livy writes nor errs,
Of Roman rings so marvellous a spoil,
With those who, Robert Guiscard's swords and spears
Defying, met great hurt and sore distress,
And those whose bones the plough still disinters
At Ceperano, where their faithlessness
The Apulians proved, and Tagliacozzo, where
The aged Alard conquered weaponless;
And one should make his riddled carcase bare
And another show his limbs cut off; yet shapes
Of fouler fashion in the Ninth Chasm were.
A cask that has lost side- or mid-piece gapes
Less wide than one I saw, chopped from the chin
Down to that part wherefrom the wind escapes.
The bowels trailed, drooping his legs between;
The pluck appeared, the sorry pouch and vent
That turns to dung all it has swallowed in.
While gazing on him I stood all intent,
He eyed me, and with his hands opened his breast,
Saying: " Now behold how I myself have rent!
How is Mahomet maimed, thou canst attest.
Before me Ali, weeping tear on tear,
Goes with face cloven apart from chin to crest.
And all the others whom thou seist here
Were, alive, sowers of schism and of discord,
And therefore in this wise they are cloven sheer.
There is a devil behind us who hath scored
His mark on us, and brings each of this crew
Again to the edge of his most cruel sword
When the forlorn road we have circled through.
For all our wounds are healed of blood and bruise
Ere any of us before him comes anew.
But who art thou who on the crag dost muse,
Haply to postpone thine apportioned pain,
Whatever sins confessed thy soul accuse. "
" Death comes not yet to him, nor guilty stain, "
Replied my Master, " chastisement to wreak,
But that the full experience he obtain,
I, who am dead, am missioned through Hell's reek
From zone to zone to lead him undeterred;
And this is true as that to thee I speak. "
More than a hundred spirits, as him they heard,
Forgetting anguish in astonishment,
Halted amid the fosse and on me stared.
" Thou then who to the sun may'st win ascent
Erelong, bid Fra Dolcino his granaries
(Unless to hurry hither he be bent)
Replenish well, that to the Novarese
Victory come not through the packing snow,
Which else it were no easy thing to seize. "
After he had lifted up one foot to go
Away, these words to me Mahomet said,
Then on the ground stretched it, departing slow.
Another who had his throat pierced through, and bled
With nose cut off up to the eyebrows' hair,
And had but one sole ear upon his head,
Standing in wonder with the rest to stare,
Before the rest opened his weazand wide
Which outwardly was crimsoned everywhere,
Saying: " Thou who art damned not and who hast not died,
And whom I have seen on Latian ground to go,
Unless in too great likeness I confide,
Remember Pier da Medicina; and oh,
If ever thou revisit the sweet plain
That from Vercelli inclines to Marcabo,
Hie thee to Fano and to her worthiest twain,
To Guido and to Angiolello, and say
That if the foresight given us be not vain,
Out of their ship they shall be cast away
By a fell tyrant's cruelty and guile,
Thrown overboard nigh La Cattolica.
Never 'twixt Cyprus and Majorca's isle
Not even with pirates or with Grecian spawn
Saw Neptune such a crime his waves defile.
That traitor who with one eye sees alone
And holds the city which one who is with me here
Would wish his eyes had never looked upon,
Will summon them in parley to confer
And then so act that they shall need no prayer
Or vow, Focara's stormy cape to clear. "
And I to him: " Show to me and declare,
If news of thee I carry up to the sun,
Who is he that had the bitter sight to bear? "
Then laid he his hand upon the jaw of one
Of his companions and the mouth opened,
Saying: " This is he, and all his speech is done.
He it is who, banished, made in Caesar end
The doubt, affirming that to men prepared
Delay is injury and never friend. "
O how despairing now to me appeared,
With tongue slit in his gullet and estopped,
Curio, who in speech so greatly dared.
And one who at the wrist had both hands lopt
Raising the stumps through the dim air on high
So that their blood befouled him as it dropt,
Said: " Thou'lt remember too the Mosca's cry
" A thing done makes an end." Alas, how bad
Was the seed sown for Tuscan folk thereby! "
" And for thy kin death, " thereto did I add.
So that accumulating pain on pain
He went away like one with anguish mad.
But I remained to look on the sad train,
And saw a thing which without proof more sure
I should have fear even to tell again,
Saving that conscience holdeth me secure,
That good companion which doth fortify
With a strong breastplate one who knows him pure.
Verily I saw and still have in mine eye
A headless trunk that followed in the tread
Of the others of that desolate company.
And by the hair it held the severed head
That in its hand was like a lantern swayed,
And as it looked at us, " Oh me! " it said.
Thus of itself a lamp for itself it made;
And they were two in one and one in two;
How this can be, He knows who is there obeyed.
When it was just at the arch and close below,
It raised its arm high and the head with it
That it might bring its words the nearer so.
Which were: " Behold now the most hard forfeit!
Thou who still breathing goest the dead to view
See if any forfeit cruel as this thou meet.
And that thou may'st bear tidings of me true,
Bertran de Born am I, who the Young King
Into the evil of my promptings drew.
Father and son did I to quarrel bring.
Ahitophel wrought not more on Absalom
And David with the malice of his sting.
Such union since I made asunder come,
I carry alas! dissevered this my brain
From the live marrow it fed its vigour from.
Thus retribution's law do I maintain. "