Classic Poem

CANTO VI

When my mind came back, that had closed at sight
Of those two kinsfolk in their misery bound,
Pity of which in sorrow had mazed me quite,
New torments, new tormented ones around,
Whatever step I take, wherever strain
My eyes, I see, peopling the shadowy ground.
I am now in the Third Circle of the Rain,
Eternal, cold, accurst, and charged with woe.
Its law and quality ever the same remain.
Big hail, and clots of muddied water, and snow
Pour downward through the darkness of the air:
The ground they beat stinks with the overflow.
Cerberus, cruel and uncouth monster, there
Stretches his three throats out and hound-like bays
Over the people embogged about his lair.
His beard is slobbered black, his red eyes blaze,
His belly is big, his hands clawed; and with growl
The spirits he clutches, rends piecemeal and flays.
The rain provoketh them like dogs to howl.
They with one side the other strive to screen:
Often they turn themselves, those sinners foul.
When we by Cerberus, the great Worm, were seen,
He showed the tusks within each grinning jaw:
He had no limb but quivered with his spleen.
My Guide spread out his palms, when this he saw,
And took up clods of earth, and with full fist
Crammed them into each madly ravening maw.
And like the craving dog whose barks persist
But whom the first full bites of food appease,
For all his fever is but to champ that grist,
So was it with those squalid visages
Of demon Cerberus, who roars so loud
The spirits would fain that deafness gave them ease.
Now passed we on over the shadows bowed
Beneath the crushing rain, and our feet set
On seeming bodies that were empty as a cloud.
They all lay grovelling prone amid the wet
Save one who sat up quickly and raised his head,
Seeing us pass before him, and our eyes met.
" O thou who through this drizzling hell art led, "
He cried out, " recognize me if thou may'st,
For thou wast made before I was unmade. "
And I to him: " The anguish which thou hast
It may be so obscures thee to my mind
That 'tis as if for me thou never wast.
But tell me: who art thou in such place confined
And to such punishment condemned, that though
Worse may be, none is of so loathsome kind. "
And he to me: " Thy city, which brims so
With envy that the sack is ripe to spill,
Contained me in the sunny life ye know.
You citizens called me Ciacco: I did ill.
For the fell sin of gluttony I atone
Thou seest how in the rain I suffer still.
And I, unhappy spirit, am not alone.
For all of these are in like penal state
For the like trespass. " More he would speak none.
I answered him: " Ciacco, thy piteous fate
Weighs on me so, it moves me to lament.
But, if thou canst, tell me what things await
The citizens of the city that strife has rent,
If any in it be just: and tell me why
Such discord doth within it so ferment. "
And he to me: " They from contention high
Shall come to blood; the Party of the White
With contumely shall force the other to fly.
This one must fall ere three suns spend their light,
And the other shall in turn prevail, upborne
By him who now keeps tacking left and right.
Long shall it hold high the proud front of scorn,
Making the other with sore burdens bleed,
Though with the shame of bondage it be torn.
Two indeed are just: but none to them gives heed.
Pride, Envy, and Avarice are the triple spark
Which sows in all those bosoms fiery seed. "
Here ended he his lamentation dark.
And I to him: " Continue, for I would
Hear yet more from thee and thine instruction mark.
Farinata and Tegghiaio, who worthiest stood,
Arrigo, Rusticucci, and Mosca, and those
Others who fixed their will on doing good,
Where are they? And what place found they at the close?
For fain would I be certain, if I may,
Whether they taste Hell's poison or Heaven's repose. "
And he: " Among the blackest spirits they.
Them may'st thou see, if thou so far descend,
Whom different guilt doth to the bottom weigh.
But when thou art come to the sweet world, befriend
My memory, and recall to men my fate.
No more I tell thee: here I make an end. "
He twisted then his eyes asquint from straight,
Looked at me a little, and then bowed down his head
And mid his blind companions fell prostrate.
My Guide spoke to me: " No more from that bed
He wakes until the angel trumpet sounds
When the stern Power shall make his advent dread.
They shall revisit then their sad grave-mounds,
And each his flesh and his own shape resume,
And hear what through eternity resounds. "
Thus passed we on through the commingled gloom
Of the shadows and the rain with paces slow,
Touching a little on the life to come.
Wherefore I said: " Master, these pangs of woe, —
Shall they be increased after the great Assize
Or stay scorching as now, or lesser grow? "
And he: " Turn to thy science and be wise.
The more a thing perfected is, the more
It feels bliss, and in pain the sharper sighs.
Although the state of these accurst at core
Never indeed in true perfection ends,
They look then to be nearer than before. "
We made along that circle as round it bends,
Speaking much more than I repeat, till we
Attained the point whereat the road descends.
Here found we Plutus, the Great Enemy.