Canto XIII

       Table of Contents

      ARGUMENT.—Still in the seventh circle, Dante enters its second compartment, which contains both those who have done violence on their own persons and those who have violently consumed their goods; the first changed into rough and knotted trees whereon the harpies build their nests, the latter chased and torn by black female mastiffs. Among the former, Piero delle Vigne is one who tells him the cause of his having committed suicide, and moreover in what manner the souls are transformed into those trunks. Of the latter crew, he recognizes Lano, a Siennese, and Giacomo, a Paduan; and lastly, a Florentine, who had hung himself from his own roof, speaks to him of the calamities of his countrymen.

      ERE Nessus yet had reach’d the other bank,

      We enter’d on a forest, where no track

      Of steps had worn a way. Not verdant there

      The foliage, but of dusky hue; not light

      The boughs and tapering, but with knares deform’d

      And matted thick: fruits there were none, but thorns

      Instead, with venom fill’d. Less sharp than these,

      Less intricate the brakes, wherein abide

      Those animals, that hate the cultur’d fields,

Betwixt Corneto and Cecina’s stream.1

      Here the brute Harpies make their nest, the same

      Who from the Strophades the Trojan band

      Drove with dire boding of their future woe.

      Broad are their pennons, of the human form

      Their neck and count’nance, arm’d with talons keen

      The feet, and the huge belly fledge with wings

      These sit and wail on the drear mystic wood.

      The kind instructor in these words began:

      “Ere farther thou proceed, know thou art now

      I’ th’ second round, and shalt be, till thou come

      Upon the horrid sand: look therefore well

      Around thee, and such things thou shalt behold,

      As would my speech discredit.” On all sides

      I heard sad plainings breathe, and none could see

      From whom they might have issu’d. In amaze

      Fast bound I stood. He, as it seem’d, believ’d,

      That I had thought so many voices came

      From some amid those thickets close conceal’d,

      And thus his speech resum’d: “If thou lop off

      A single twig from one of those ill plants,

      The thought thou hast conceiv’d shall vanish quite.”

      Thereat a little stretching forth my hand,

      From a great wilding gather’d I a branch,

      And straight the trunk exclaim’d: “Why pluck’st thou me?”

      Then as the dark blood trickled down its side,

      These words it added: “Wherefore tear’st me thus?

      Is there no touch of mercy in thy breast?

      Men once were we, that now are rooted here.

      Thy hand might well have spar’d us, had we been

      The souls of serpents.” As a brand yet green,

      That burning at one end from the’ other sends

      A groaning sound, and hisses with the wind

      That forces out its way, so burst at once,

      Forth from the broken splinter words and blood.

      I, letting fall the bough, remain’d as one

      Assail’d by terror, and the sage replied:

      “If he, O injur’d spirit! could have believ’d

      What he hath seen but in my verse describ’d,