Canto XXV. Vanni Fucci's Punishment. Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, Puccio Sciancato, Cianfa de' Donati, and Guercio Cavalcanti.

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      At the conclusion of his words, the thief

       Lifted his hands aloft with both the figs,

       Crying: "Take that, God, for at thee I aim them."

      From that time forth the serpents were my friends;

       For one entwined itself about his neck

       As if it said: "I will not thou speak more;"

      And round his arms another, and rebound him,

       Clinching itself together so in front,

       That with them he could not a motion make.

      Pistoia, ah, Pistoia! why resolve not

       To burn thyself to ashes and so perish,

       Since in ill-doing thou thy seed excellest?

      Through all the sombre circles of this Hell,

       Spirit I saw not against God so proud,

       Not he who fell at Thebes down from the walls!

      He fled away, and spake no further word;

       And I beheld a Centaur full of rage

       Come crying out: "Where is, where is the scoffer?"

      I do not think Maremma has so many

       Serpents as he had all along his back,

       As far as where our countenance begins.

      Upon the shoulders, just behind the nape,

       With wings wide open was a dragon lying,

       And he sets fire to all that he encounters.

      My Master said: "That one is Cacus, who

       Beneath the rock upon Mount Aventine

       Created oftentimes a lake of blood.

      He goes not on the same road with his brothers,

       By reason of the fraudulent theft he made

       Of the great herd, which he had near to him;

      Whereat his tortuous actions ceased beneath

       The mace of Hercules, who peradventure

       Gave him a hundred, and he felt not ten."

      While he was speaking thus, he had passed by,

       And spirits three had underneath us come,

       Of which nor I aware was, nor my Leader,

      Until what time they shouted: "Who are you?"

       On which account our story made a halt,

       And then we were intent on them alone.

      I did not know them; but it came to pass,

       As it is wont to happen by some chance,

       That one to name the other was compelled,

      Exclaiming: "Where can Cianfa have remained?"

       Whence I, so that the Leader might attend,

       Upward from chin to nose my finger laid.

      If thou art, Reader, slow now to believe

       What I shall say, it will no marvel be,

       For I who saw it hardly can admit it.

      As I was holding raised on them my brows,

       Behold! a serpent with six feet darts forth

       In front of one, and fastens wholly on him.

      With middle feet it bound him round the paunch,

       And with the forward ones his arms it seized;

       Then thrust its teeth through one cheek and the other;

      The hindermost it stretched upon his thighs,

       And put its tail through in between the two,

       And up behind along the reins outspread it.

      Ivy was never fastened by its barbs

       Unto a tree so, as this horrible reptile

       Upon the other's limbs entwined its own.

      Then they stuck close, as if of heated wax

       They had been made, and intermixed their colour;

       Nor one nor other seemed now what he was;

      E'en as proceedeth on before the flame

       Upward along the paper a brown colour,

       Which is not black as yet, and the white dies.

      The other two looked on, and each of them

       Cried out: "O me, Agnello, how thou changest!

       Behold, thou now art neither two nor one."

      Already the two heads had one become,

       When there appeared to us two figures mingled

       Into one face, wherein the two were lost.

      Of the four lists were fashioned the two arms,

       The thighs and legs, the belly and the chest

       Members became that never yet were seen.

      Every original aspect there was cancelled;

       Two and yet none did the perverted image

       Appear, and such departed with slow pace.

      Even as a lizard, under the great scourge

       Of days canicular, exchanging hedge,

       Lightning appeareth if the road it cross;

      Thus