Inferno

But since force may be used against three persons,

In three rounds ’tis divided and constructed.

To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbour can we

Use force; I say on them and on their things,

As thou shalt hear with reason manifest.

A death by violence, and painful wounds,

Are to our neighbour given; and in his substance

Ruin, and arson, and injurious levies;

Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly,

Marauders, and freebooters, the first round

Tormenteth all in companies diverse.

Man may lay violent hands upon himself

And his own goods; and therefore in the second

Round must perforce without avail repent

Whoever of your world deprives himself,

Who games, and dissipates his property,

And weepeth there, where he should jocund be.

Violence can be done the Deity,

In heart denying and blaspheming Him,

And by disdaining Nature and her bounty.

And for this reason doth the smallest round

Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors,

And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart.

Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung,

A man may practise upon him who trusts,

And him who doth no confidence imburse.

This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers

Only the bond of love which Nature makes;

Wherefore within the second circle nestle

Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic,

Falsification, theft, and simony,

Panders, and barrators, and the like filth.

By the other mode, forgotten is that love

Which Nature makes, and what is after added,

From which there is a special faith engendered.

Hence in the smallest circle, where the point is

Of the Universe, upon which Dis is seated,

Whoe’er betrays for ever is consumed.”

And I: “My Master, clear enough proceeds

Thy reasoning, and full well distinguishes

This cavern and the people who possess it.

But tell me, those within the fat lagoon,

Whom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth beat,

And who encounter with such bitter tongues,

Wherefore are they inside of the red city

Not punished, if God has them in his wrath,

And if he has not, wherefore in such fashion?”

And unto me he said: “Why wanders so

Thine intellect from that which it is wont?

Or, sooth, thy mind where is it elsewhere looking?

Hast thou no recollection of those words

With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses

The dispositions three, that Heaven abides not,—

Incontinence, and Malice, and insane

Bestiality? and how Incontinence

Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts?

If thou regardest this conclusion well,

And to thy mind recallest who they are

That up outside are undergoing penance,

Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons

They separated are, and why less wroth

Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer.”

“O Sun, that healest all distempered vision,

Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest,

That doubting pleases me no less than knowing!

Once more a little backward turn thee,” said I,

“There where thou sayest that usury offends

Goodness divine, and disengage the knot.”

“Philosophy,” he said, “to him who heeds it,

Noteth, not only in one place alone,

After what manner Nature takes her course

From Intellect Divine, and from its art;

And if thy Physics carefully thou notest,

After not many pages shalt thou find,

That this your art as far as possible

Follows, as the disciple doth the master;

So that your art is, as it were, God’s grandchild.

From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind

Genesis at the beginning, it behoves

Mankind to gain their life and to advance;

And since the usurer takes another way,

Nature herself and in her follower

Disdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope.

But follow, now, as I would fain go on,

For quivering are the Fishes on the horizon,

And the Wain wholly over Caurus lies,

And far beyond there we descend the crag.”

CANTO XII

The place where to descend the bank we came

Was alpine, and from what was there, moreover,

Of such a kind that every eye would shun it.

Such as that ruin is which in the flank

Smote, on this side of Trent, the Adige,

Either by earthquake or by failing stay,

For from the mountain’s top, from which it moved,

Unto the plain the cliff is shattered so,

Some path ’twould give to him who was above;

Even such was the descent of that ravine,

And on the border of the broken chasm

The infamy of Crete was stretched along,

Who was conceived in the fictitious cow;

And when he us beheld, he bit himself,

Even as one whom anger racks within.

My Sage towards him shouted: “Peradventure

Thou think’st that here may be the Duke of Athens,

Who in the world above brought death to thee?

Get thee gone, beast, for this one cometh not

Instructed by thy sister, but he comes

In order to behold your punishments.”

As is that bull who breaks loose at the moment

In which he has received the mortal blow,

Who cannot walk, but staggers here and there,

The Minotaur beheld I do the like;

And he, the wary, cried: “Run to the passage;

While he wroth, ’tis well thou shouldst descend.”

Thus down we took our way o’er that discharge

Of stones, which oftentimes did move themselves

Beneath my feet, from the unwonted burden.

Thoughtful I went; and he said: “Thou art thinking

Perhaps upon this ruin, which is guarded

By that brute anger which just now I quenched.

Now will I have thee know, the other time

I here descended to the nether Hell,

This precipice had not yet fallen down.

But truly, if I well discern, a little

Before His coming who the mighty spoil

Bore off from Dis, in the supernal circle,

Upon all sides the deep and loathsome valley

Trembled so, that I thought the Universe

Was thrilled with love, by which there are who think

The world ofttimes converted into chaos;

And at that moment this primeval crag

Both here and elsewhere made such overthrow.

But fix thine eyes below; for draweth near

The river of blood, within which boiling is

Whoe’er by violence doth injure others.”

O blind cupidity, O wrath insane,

That spurs us onward so in our short life,

And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!

I saw an ample moat bent like a bow,

As one which all the plain encompasses,

Conformable to what my Guide had said.

And between this and the embankment’s foot

Centaurs in file were running, armed with arrows,

As in the world they used the chase to follow.

Beholding us descend, each one stood still,

And from the squadron three detached themselves,

With bows and arrows in advance selected;

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