Inferno
Canto IX
Without some divine aid the poets are unable to enter the City. Above the walls suddenly appear the three Furies and threaten Dante with the Medusa head which turns those who see it to stone. At last appears with a sound of storm the Angel for whose aid Virgil has been waiting; he passes over the marsh, puts the demons to flight and opens the gate of the City. They pass within and find a plain covered with sepulchres, the lids of which are open and which are full of flames.These sepulchres contain the Heretics.
THE colour cowardice had painted pale
Upon my cheek, seeing my Guide turn back,
Made him more promptly his own hue countervail.
He stopt, like one who some far sound would track,
List’ning: for but short distance could eye strive
Into the dim air filmed with vapour black.
“Yet needs must that the victory we contrive,”
He began; “if not, . . . we were promised aid . . .
O how long seems it till that one arrive!”
Well I perceived how his beginning stayed, [10]
And how with other words the first he sought
To cover, and with a difference overlaid.
Nevertheless his language on me wrought;
For it may be the words he faltered on
I drew to a worse meaning than his thought.
“Ito this bottom of the shell’s drear cone
Comes ever any from the first degree,[i]17. “From the first degree”: the Limbus.
Whose only punishment is hope forgone?”
So did I question; and he answered me:
“Rarely it chances that any of us essay [20]
This journey upon which I go with thee.
True it is that once ere now I came this way,
By that Erichtho fearfully conjured[ii]23. “By that Erichtho fearfully conjured”: The Thessalian sorceress Erichtho, Virgil declares, sent him, shortly after his death, to fetch a soul from the pit of treachery. That witches had such power over the departed, was firmly believed not merely by the ancients but in Christian times down almost to our day.
Who summoned back the shadows to their clay.
To the body’s loss not long was I inured
When she made me to enter within that wall
To fetch a spirit in Judas’ circle immured.
That is the lowest and most dark place of all,
Farthest from the Heaven that moveth all. I know[iii]29. “The Heaven that moveth all” is the Primum Mobile, the outermost of the revolving heavens.
Full well the way: let naught then thee appal. [30]
This marsh, whose exhalation stinketh so,
Girdles the dolorous city of the dead,
Where without anger now we cannot go.”
My memory hath not kept what more he said,
Because mine eyes drew me all up where I stood
To the high tower's top, palpitating red,
Where, all in a moment risen up, with blood
Spotted on them, three hellish Furies frowned.
Women they were in body and attitude,
And they were girt with bright green hydras round; [40]
For hair they had small snakes and horn’d vipers
About the ghastness of their temples wound.
He recognising well the ministers
Who serve the queen of wailing without cease,
Said to me: “Mark now the Erynnes fierce!
The Fury upon the left Megaera is;
Alecto is she that clamours on the right;
‘Twixt them Tisiphone.” Then he held his peace
Each at her breast was clawing, and then would smite
Her body with the palms: so loud their moan, [50]
I pressed close to the poet in my affright.
“Let come Medusa, and change we him to stone!”
All with one voice, and eyes bent downward, said.
“Ill made we Theseus his assault atone.”[iv]54. Theseus, who had attempted to rescue Persephone from the lower world, was himself rescued by Hercules.
“Turn backwards. Keep thine eyes closed in thy head!
For if thou with the Gorgon should’st be faced,
There would be no return up from the dead.”
Thus spoke the Master, and he himself made haste
To turn me, and would not in my hands confide
But his own also on my eyelids placed. [60]
O ye who have sane intellects for guide
Consider well the doctrines that for cloak
Beneath the strangeness of the verses hide!
And now upon the turbid waters broke
A crash, terrible with re-echoings
That into trembling either shore awoke.
It was a sound as of a wind that springs
Impetuous, meeting air that’s hot and dry,
Which unrelaxing all the forest wrings,
Wrenches the boughs off, breaks and beats awry. [70]
Rolling the dust, imperiously it towers,
And makes the wild beasts and the shepherds fly.
Freeing my eyes, he said: “Sharpen thy powers
Of vision over the foam of the ancient lake,
Where most the smoke is and the swart air lours.”
As frogs before their enemy the snake
Leap through the water, scattered at his threat,
Till each squats on the bottom, there to quake,
So saw I thousand ruined spirits set
In flight before one, who at easy pace [80]
Came and passed over Styx with soles unwet.
He waved the gross fumes from before his face,
Moving often his left hand as he went;
And only of that annoyance showed he trace.
Well did I know that he from Heaven was sent,
And tured to the Master; and he signed his will
That I should stand all quiet with head down-bent.
Ah, with what scorn his countenance seemed to fill!
He came to the gate, and with a wand he held
Set it wide open, unresisted still. [90]
“O race contemptible, from Heaven expelled!”
Began he then, on the malign threshold,
“Why is your contumacy yet unquelled?
Why at that Will still spurn ye, as of old,
Whose infinite fulfilment naught frustrates
And which hath oft increased your pains fourfold?
What profits it to butt against the Fates?
Your Cerberus rues his chin peeled and throat scored[v]98-99. Cerberus, having tried to obstruct Hercules, was chained by him and dragged outside of Hell.
For this, if ye remember, at yon gates.”
Then on the unclean journey, without word [100]
Spoken to us, returned he, and looked like one
By other business constrained and spurred
Than that of those before him; and thereon
We moved, and toward the city made our way,
Secure of what the sacred words had done.
We entered into it without any affray.
And I who had desire to scrutinise
What things, and how, within such fortress lay,
Soon as I was within, sent round my eyes
And saw a wilderness on either hand [110]
Full of evil torments and of miseries.
Like as at Arles, where Rhone stagnates in sand,
Like as at Pola, by Quarnaro Sound,
That barriers Italy and bathes her strand,
Sepulchres make uneven all the ground,[vi]115. “Sepulchres make uneven all the ground”: At Arles, near the delta of the Rhone, and at Pola, in the south of Istria, were ancient burying-grounds. The graves at Arles, of Roman origin, were thought to be filled with the bodies of Christian heroes who had fallen in battle with the Saracens. Just outside the city, on that side, the current of the Rhone turns to an eddy.
So here on every side were tombs arrayed,
Only that here was bitterer burial found;
For scatterings of flame among them played
Whereby they were so heated through and through
That no craft needeth iron hotter made. [120]
Their covers were all raised up in our view,
And out of them such harsh lamenting rose
As from a wretched and a wounded crew.
And I spoke: “Tell me, Master, who are those
Who, within these chests buried, so beseech
With grievous sighs compassion on their throes?”
And he: “The Arch-Heretics are here, with each
His following of all sects: and heavier load
These tombs have in them than thy thought can reach.
Here like with like is buried in one abode, [130]
And less or more hot are the monuments.”
Then to the right hand turning, our feet trod
Between those pangs and the high battlements.