CANTO XX.

Argument.

Sorcerers, condemned to look backwards. — Description of the Lago di Garda. — Origin of Mantua. — Virgil's birth-place.
N OW of new penalties my verse must tell,
And give material for the twentieth strain
Of my first song, which is of those whom Hell
For aye devours. And I, in sooth, was fain
To look on those in the uncover'd deep,
From whom sad tears of anguish'd sorrow rain.
And souls were there whose eyes for ever weep;
Silent they came, as those who on this earth
The solemn pace of litanies do keep.
While lower unto them my looks went forth,
Transform'd in wondrous guise did they appear,
Each from the chin to where the chest hath birth;
For backwards each his countenance did wear,
And backwards they must march; no power to see
Before them have the mournful dwellers here.
Perchance, the force of dread paralysie
May thus distort: but this I have not seen;
Nor do I think, in truth, such thing can be.
Reader, if God doth grant thee skill to glean
Some fruit from what thou readest, thou mayst know
How hard to gaze with tearless eyes had been
My task, when thus man's image fair I saw
So twisted, that the rain from their sad eyes
Adown their hinder parts in streams did flow.
And leaning thus against a stone which lies
On the hard rock, I wept; till Virgil said:
" E'en in thy heart do thoughts of folly rise?
Here pity lives when well it might be dead.
Who is more wicked than the man whose pride
Blasphemes divinest justice? Raise thy head;
Look on those spirits, till thou hast descried
Him whom before the Thebans' eyes, of old,
The gaping earth did swallow; thus they cried:
" O Amphiaraus, wherefore art not bold
To join the battle? whither dost thou flee?"
Yet sank he down to Minos' deadly hold.
Look, as a chest to him his shoulders be!
Because his forward glance too far would range,
Now only backwards hath he power to see.
Behold Tiresias, who his form did change,
When erst from male a female he became,
And all his limbs knew metamorphose strange;
And he again must needs have struck the same
Entangled serpents, ere to him once more,
As at the first, his manly semblance came.
The next is Aruns; he who dwelt of yore
Among the hills of Luna, where the brave
And patient Carrarese still labour sore.
'Mid the white marble summits a dim cave
Was his abode: there, from its entrance nought
Conceal'd the starry sky and ocean wave.
And she who hides her breasts, still vainly sought,
With her long tresses loosen'd from their bands,
Where all with locks redundant there is fraught,
Was Manto, wand'rer erst through many a land;
Then rested she where first I saw the light:
Therefore a little to my words attend.
After her father's death, 'neath Creon's might,
Did Bacchus' city lie a vanquish'd slave;
And through the world, for long, she took her flight.
High in fair Italy a lake doth lave
The Alpine walls which Germany enclose,
O'er Tyrol; and Benacus is its wave.
From thousand founts and more its water flows,
'Twixt Garda and Camonica, to bathe
The Apennines, before each streamlet knows
Its place of rest. A spot in midst it hath,
Where, sooth, the Brescian and the Veronese
And Trentine pastor, journeying on that path,
Give benediction. There the voyager sees
Fair Peschiera stand, which aye hath been
A fortress strong, where most the banks decrease
Tow'rds Bergamesc and Brescian. There, I ween,
The waves, too ample for Benacus, flow
A gentle river through the pastures green.
Soon as the stream in downward course doth go,
Benacus then no longer is it hight,
But Mincio, till it falls into the Po,
Anear Governo. And not far its flight,
Till in a miry plain its waters spread,
Whence rise foul mists when summer days are bright.
Thus saw the cruel virgin, as she fled,
That the dank, stagnant marsh some land did bind,
Lone and uncultured. Swiftly there she sped,
And wholly sever'd from all human kind,
Dwelt with her slaves, intent upon her art,
And lived, and left her corpse. Then did they find
Who, scatter'd, dwelt around, on every part
What strength invincible the marshy soil
And circling wave did to that isle impart;
They built the city o'er her mortal spoil,
And for her name who chose at first the spot,
They call'd it Mantua; nor further toil
Of sacrificial augury they sought.
But many more, in sooth, the dwellers there,
Ere Casalodi, with strange folly fraught,
Did Pinamonti's treach'rous counsel hear:
I charge thee, then, if other tale they tell,
Admit thou not their counsel to thine ear. "
And I replied: " My Master, now so well
Thy speech persuades me with such certain faith,
That even as ashes where no light doth dwell
Shall be to me each tale of lying breath:
But of those others here (if worthy) speak,
For only this desire my spirit hath. "
Then Virgil said: " Yon shade, adown whose cheek
The beard descends upon his shoulders brown,
Was augur, when there scarce remain'd a Greek
Within his native land, save babes alone;
From him, with Calchas erst the signal fell,
In Aulis, ere one sail from thence had flown.
Eurypylus his name; of him doth tell
My lofty tragedy, in some high scene,
As thou, in sooth, shouldst know, who know'st it well
That other, whom thou seest with form so lean,
The wizard Michael Scot, who, verily,
Most skill'd of all in magic lore hath been.
Guido Bonatti also thou mayst see:
Asdenti, who would fain that he had still
Kept to the awl and last; but now doth he
Too late repent. And they who left the reel,
The needle, and the distaff, here do mourn
Of herbs and images their evil skill.
But now arise; for on the watery bourne,
Touching both hemispheres, doth rest the light,
Anear Seville, of Cain who bears the thorn.
And, sooth, the moon was full but yesternight:
This thou shouldst well remember, for her smile
'Mid the deep forest-gloom did aid thy flight. "
With me he thus discoursed; we journey'd on the while.