Canto XXII. Ciampolo, Friar Gomita, and Michael Zanche. The Malabranche quarrel.

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      I have erewhile seen horsemen moving camp,

       Begin the storming, and their muster make,

       And sometimes starting off for their escape;

      Vaunt-couriers have I seen upon your land,

       O Aretines, and foragers go forth,

       Tournaments stricken, and the joustings run,

      Sometimes with trumpets and sometimes with bells,

       With kettle-drums, and signals of the castles,

       And with our own, and with outlandish things,

      But never yet with bagpipe so uncouth

       Did I see horsemen move, nor infantry,

       Nor ship by any sign of land or star.

      We went upon our way with the ten demons;

       Ah, savage company! but in the church

       With saints, and in the tavern with the gluttons!

      Ever upon the pitch was my intent,

       To see the whole condition of that Bolgia,

       And of the people who therein were burned.

      Even as the dolphins, when they make a sign

       To mariners by arching of the back,

       That they should counsel take to save their vessel,

      Thus sometimes, to alleviate his pain,

       One of the sinners would display his back,

       And in less time conceal it than it lightens.

      As on the brink of water in a ditch

       The frogs stand only with their muzzles out,

       So that they hide their feet and other bulk,

      So upon every side the sinners stood;

       But ever as Barbariccia near them came,

       Thus underneath the boiling they withdrew.

      I saw, and still my heart doth shudder at it,

       One waiting thus, even as it comes to pass

       One frog remains, and down another dives;

      And Graffiacan, who most confronted him,

       Grappled him by his tresses smeared with pitch,

       And drew him up, so that he seemed an otter.

      I knew, before, the names of all of them,

       So had I noted them when they were chosen,

       And when they called each other, listened how.

      "O Rubicante, see that thou do lay

       Thy claws upon him, so that thou mayst flay him,"

       Cried all together the accursed ones.

      And I: "My Master, see to it, if thou canst,

       That thou mayst know who is the luckless wight,

       Thus come into his adversaries' hands."

      Near to the side of him my Leader drew,

       Asked of him whence he was; and he replied:

       "I in the kingdom of Navarre was born;

      My mother placed me servant to a lord,

       For she had borne me to a ribald knave,

       Destroyer of himself and of his things.

      Then I domestic was of good King Thibault;

       I set me there to practise barratry,

       For which I pay the reckoning in this heat."

      And Ciriatto, from whose mouth projected,

       On either side, a tusk, as in a boar,

       Caused him to feel how one of them could rip.

      Among malicious cats the mouse had come;

       But Barbariccia clasped him in his arms,

       And said: "Stand ye aside, while I enfork him."

      And to my Master he turned round his head;

       "Ask him again," he said, "if more thou wish

       To know from him, before some one destroy him."

      The Guide: "Now tell then of the other culprits;

       Knowest thou any one who is a Latian,

       Under the pitch?" And he: "I separated

      Lately from one who was a neighbour to it;

       Would that I still were covered up with him,

       For I should fear not either claw nor hook!"

      And Libicocco: "We have borne too much;"

       And with his grapnel seized him by the arm,

       So that, by rending, he tore off a tendon.

      Eke Draghignazzo wished to pounce upon him

       Down at the legs; whence their Decurion

       Turned round and round about with evil look.

      When they again somewhat were pacified,

       Of