The Divine Comedy (Illustrated Edition). Dante Alighieri
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That not so many tongues this day are taught,
Betwixt the Reno and Savena’s stream,
To answer SIPA3 in their country’s phrase.
And if of that securer proof thou need,
Remember but our craving thirst for gold.”
Him speaking thus, a demon with his thong
Struck, and exclaim’d, “Away! corrupter! here
Women are none for sale.” Forthwith I join’d
My escort, and few paces thence we came
To where a rock forth issued from the bank.
That easily ascended, to the right
Upon its splinter turning, we depart
From those eternal barriers. When arriv’d,
Where underneath the gaping arch lets pass
The scourged souls: “Pause here,” the teacher said,
“And let these others miserable, now
Strike on thy ken, faces not yet beheld,
For that together they with us have walk’d.”
From the old bridge we ey’d the pack, who came
From th’ other side towards us, like the rest,
Excoriate from the lash. My gentle guide,
By me unquestion’d, thus his speech resum’d:
“Behold that lofty shade, who this way tends,
And seems too woe-begone to drop a tear.
How yet the regal aspect he retains!
Jason is he, whose skill and prowess won
The ram from Colchos. To the Lemnian isle
His passage thither led him, when those bold
And pitiless women had slain all their males.
There he with tokens and fair witching words
Hypsipyle4 beguil’d, a virgin young,
Who first had all the rest herself beguil’d.
Impregnated he left her there forlorn.
Such is the guilt condemns him to this pain.
Here too Medea’s inj’ries are avenged.
All bear him company, who like deceit
To his have practis’d. And thus much to know
Of the first vale suffice thee, and of those
Whom its keen torments urge.” Now had we come
Where, crossing the next pier, the straighten’d path
Bestrides its shoulders to another arch.
Hence in the second chasm we heard the ghosts,
Who jibber in low melancholy sounds,
With wide-stretch’d nostrils snort, and on themselves
Smite with their palms. Upon the banks a scurf
From the foul steam condens’d, encrusting hung,
That held sharp combat with the sight and smell.
So hollow is the depth, that from no part,
Save on the summit of the rocky span,
Could I distinguish aught. Thus far we came;
And thence I saw, within the foss below,
A crowd immers’d in ordure, that appear’d
Draff of the human body. There beneath
Searching with eye inquisitive, I mark’d
One with his head so grim’d, ’t were hard to deem,
If he were clerk or layman. Loud he cried:
“Why greedily thus bendest more on me,
Than on these other filthy ones, thy ken?”
“Because if true my mem’ry,” I replied,
“I heretofore have seen thee with dry locks,
And thou Alessio5 art of Lucca sprung.
Therefore than all the rest I scan thee more.”
Then beating on his brain these words he spake:
“Me thus low down my flatteries have sunk,
Wherewith I ne’er enough could glut my tongue.”
My leader thus: “A little further stretch
Thy face, that thou the visage well mayst note
Of that besotted, sluttish courtezan,
Who there doth rend her with defiled nails,
Now crouching down, now risen on her feet.
Thaïs6 is this, the harlot, whose false lip
Answer’d her doting paramour that ask’d,
‘Thankest me much!’ — ‘Say rather wondrously,’
And seeing this here satiate be our view.”
Footnotes
1 In the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII, to remedy the inconvenience occasioned by the press over the bridge of St. Angelo during the time of the Jubilee, caused it to be divided lengthwise by a partition. G. Villani, who was present, describes the order that was preserved, lib. viii. c. xxxvi. It was at this time, and on this occasion, that he first conceived the design of “compiling his book.”
2 Venedico Caccianimico, a Bolognese, who prevailed on his sister Ghisola to prostitute herself to Obizzo da Este. (See Canto xii.)
3 “To answer Sipa.” He denotes Bologna by its situation between the rivers Savena to the east and Reno to the west, and by a peculiarity of dialect, the use of the affirmative “sipa” instead either of “si” or of “sia.”
4 She deceived the other women, by concealing her father Thoas, when they slew their males.
5 Of the old Interminei family.
6 “Thaïs.” In the Eunuchus of Terence, Thraso asks if Thaïs was obliged to him for his present; and Gnatho replies, that she had expressed her obligation in the most forcible terms.
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