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      One, and two figures blended in one form

      Appear’d, where both were lost. Of the four lengths

      Two arms were made: the belly and the chest,

      The thighs and legs, into such members changed

      As never eye hath seen. Of former shape

      All trace was vanish’d. Two, yet neither, seem’d

      That image miscreate, and so pass’d on

      With tardy steps. As underneath the scourge

      Of the fierce dog-star that lays bare the fields,

      Shifting from brake to brake the lizard seems

      A flash of lightning, if he thwart the road;

      So toward the entrails of the other two

      Approaching seem’d an adder all on fire,

      As the dark pepper-grain livid and swart.

      In that part, whence our life is nourish’d first,

      Once he transpierced; then down before him fell

      Stretch’d out. The pierced spirit look’d on him,

      But spake not; yea, stood motionless and yawn’d,

      As if by sleep or feverous fit assail’d.

      He eyed the serpent, and the serpent him.

      One from the wound, the other from the mouth

      Breathed a thick smoke, whose vapory columns join’d.

      Lucan in mute attention now may hear,

      Nor thy disastrous fate, Sabellus, tell,

      Nor thine, Nasidius. Ovid now be mute.

      What if in warbling fiction he record

      Cadmus and Arethusa, to a snake

      Him changed, and her into a fountain clear,

      I envy not; for never face to face

      Two natures thus transmuted did he sing,

      Wherein both shapes were ready to assume

      The other’s substance. They in mutual guise

      So answer’d that the serpent split his train

      Divided to a fork, and the pierced spirit

      Drew close his steps together, legs and thighs

      Compacted, that no sign of juncture soon

      Was visible: the tail, disparted, took

      The figure which the spirit lost; its skin

      Softening, his indurated to a rind.

      The shoulders next I mark’d, that entering join’d

      The monster’s arm-pits, whose two shorter feet

      So lengthen’d, as the others dwindling shrunk.

      The feet behind then twisting up became

      That part that man conceals, which in the wretch

      Was cleft in twain. While both the shadowy smoke

      With a new color veils, and generates

      The excrescent pile on one, peeling it off

      From the other body, lo! upon his feet

      One upright rose, and prone the other fell.

      Nor yet their glaring and malignant lamps

      Were shifted, though each feature changed beneath.

      Of him who stood erect, the mounting face

      Retreated toward the temples, and what there

      Superfluous matter came, shot out in ears

      From the smooth cheeks; the rest, not backward dragg’d,

      Of its excess did shape the nose; and swell’d

      Into due size protuberant the lips.

      He, on the earth who lay, meanwhile extends

      His sharpen’d visage, and draws down the ears

      Into the head, as doth the slug his horns.

      His tongue, continuous before and apt

      For utterance, severs; and the other’s fork

      Closing unites. That done, the smoke was laid.

      The soul, transform’d into the brute, glides off,

      Hissing along the vale, and after him

      The other talking sputters; but soon turn’d

      His new-grown shoulders on him, and in few

      Thus to another spake: “Along this path

      Crawling, as I have done, speed Buoso now!”

      So saw I fluctuate in successive change

      The unsteady ballast of the seventh hold:

      And here if aught my pen have swerved, events

      So strange may be its warrant. O’er mine eyes

      Confusion hung, and on my thoughts amaze.

      Yet ’scaped they not so covertly, but well

      I mark’d Sciancato: he alone it was

      Of the three first that came, who changed not: tho’

      The other’s fate, Gaville! still dost rue.

Canto XXVI

      Argument.—Remounting by the steps, down which they have descended to the seventh gulf, they go forward to the arch that stretches over the eighth, and from thence behold numberless flames wherein are punished the evil counsellors, each flame containing a sinner, save one, in which were Diomede and Ulysses, the latter of whom relates the manner of his death.

      Florence, exult! for thou so mightily

      Hast thriven, that o’er land and sea thy wings

      Thou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell.

      Among the plunderers, such the three I found

      Thy citizens; whence shame to me thy son,

      And no proud honour to thyself redounds.

      But if our minds, when dreaming near the dawn,

      Are of the truth presageful, thou ere long

      Shalt feel what Prato^[170] (not to say the rest)

      Would fain might come upon thee; and that chance

      Were in good time, if it befell thee now.

      Would so it were, since it must needs befall!

      For as time wears me, I shall grieve the more.

      We from the depth departed; and my guide

      Remounting scaled the flinty steps, which late

      We downward traced, and drew me up the steep.

      Pursuing thus our solitary way

      Among the crags and splinters of the rock,

      Sped not our feet without the help of hands.

      Then sorrow seized me, which e’en now revives,

      As my thought turns again to what I saw,

      And, more than I am wont, I rein and curb

      The powers of nature in me, lest they run

      Where Virtue guides not; that, if aught of good

      My gentle star or something better

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