The Portable Dante (12 page)

see Paris, Tristan”—then, more than a thousand he pointed out to me, and named them all, those shades whom love cut off from life on earth.

After I heard my teacher call the names of all these knights and ladies of ancient times, pity confused my senses, and I was dazed.

I began: “Poet, I would like, with all my heart, to speak to those two there who move together and seem to be so light upon the winds. ”

And he: “You’ll see when they are closer to us; if you entreat them by that love of theirs that carries them along, they’ll come to you. ”

When the winds bent their course in our direction I raised my voice to them, “O wearied souls, come speak with us if it be not forbidden. ”

As doves, called by desire to return to their sweet nest, with wings raised high and poised, float downward through the air, guided by will,

so these two left the flock where Dido is and came toward us through the malignant air, such was the tender power of my call.

“O living creature, gracious and so kind, who makes your way here through this dingy air to visit us who stained the world with blood,

if we could claim as friend the King of Kings, we would beseech him that he grant you peace, you who show pity for our atrocious plight.

Whatever pleases you to hear or speak we will hear and we will speak about with you as long as the wind, here where we are, is silent.

The place where I was born lies on the shore where the river Po with its attendant streams descends to seek its final resting place.

Love, quick to kindle in the gentle heart, seized this one for the beauty of my body, torn from me. (How it happened still offends me!)

Love, that excuses no one loved from loving, seized me so strongly with delight in him that, as you see, he never leaves my side.

Love led us straight to sudden death together. Caïna awaits the one who quenched our lives. ” These were the words that came from them to us.

When those offended souls had told their story, I bowed my head and kept it bowed until the poet said, “What are you thinking of?”

When finally I spoke, I sighed, “Alas, all those sweet thoughts, and oh, how much desiring brought these two down into this agony. ”

And then I turned to them and tried to speak; I said, “Francesca, the torment that you suffer brings painful tears of pity to my eyes.

But tell me, in that time of your sweet sighing how, and by what signs, did love allow you to recognize your dubious desires?”

And she to me: “There is no greater pain than to remember, in our present grief,. past happiness (as well your teacher knows)!

But if your great desire is to learn the very root of such a love as ours, I shall tell you, but in words of flowing tears.

One day we read, to pass the time away, of Lancelot, of how he fell in love; we were alone, innocent of suspicion.

Time and again our eyes were brought together by the book we read; our faces flushed and paled. To the moment of one line alone we yielded:

it was when we read about those longed-for lips now being kissed by such a famous lover, that this one (who shall never leave my side)

then kissed my mouth, and trembled as he did. Our Galehot was that book and he who wrote it. That day we read no further. ” And all the while

the one of the two spirits spoke these words, the other wept, in such a way that pity blurred my senses; I swooned as though to die,

and fell to Hell’s floor as a body, dead, falls.

Regaining now my senses, which had fainted at the sight of these two who were kinsmen lovers, a piteous sight confusing me to tears,

new suffering and new sinners suffering appeared to me, no matter where I moved or turned my eyes, no matter where I gazed.

I am in the third circle, in the round of rain eternal, cursed, cold, and falling heavy, unchanging beat, unchanging quality.

Thick hail and dirty water mixed with snow come down in torrents through the murky air, and the earth is stinking from this soaking rain.

Cerberus, a ruthless and fantastic beast, with all three throats howls out his doglike sounds above the drowning sinners of this place.

His eyes are red, his beard is slobbered black, his belly swollen, and he has claws for hands; he rips the spirits, flays and mangles them.

Under the rain they howl like dogs, lying now on one side with the other as a screen, now on the other turning, these wretched sinners.

When the slimy Cerberus caught sight of us, he opened up his mouths and showed his fangs; his body was one mass of twitching muscles.

My master stooped and, spreading wide his fingers, he grabbed up heaping fistfuls of the mud and flung it down into those greedy gullets.

As a howling cur, hungering to get fed, quiets down with the first mouthful of his food, busy with eating, wrestling with that alone,

so it was with all three filthy heads of the demon Cerberus, used to barking thunder on these dead souls, who wished that they were deaf.

We walked across this marsh of shades beaten down by the heavy rain, our feet pressing on their emptiness that looked like human form.

Each sinner there was stretched out on the ground except for one who quickly sat up straight, the moment that he saw us pass him by.

“O you there being led through this inferno, ” he said, “try to remember who I am, for you had life before I gave up mine. ”

I said: “The pain you suffer here perhaps disfigures you beyond all recognition: I can’t remember seeing you before.

But tell me who you are, assigned to grieve in this sad place, afflicted by such torture that—worse there well may be, but none more foul. ”

“Your own city, ” he said, “so filled with envy its cup already overflows the brim, once held me in the brighter life above.

You citizens gave me the name of Ciacco; and for my sin of gluttony I am damned, as you can see, to rain that beats me weak.

And my sad sunken soul is not alone, for all these sinners here share in my pain and in my sin. ” And that was his last word.

“Ciacco, ” I said to him, “your grievous state weighs down on me, it makes me want to weep; but tell me what will happen, if you know,

to the citizens of that divided state? And are there any honest men among them? And tell me, why is it so plagued with strife? ”

And he replied: “After much contention they will come to bloodshed; the rustic party will drive the other out by brutal means.

Then it will come to pass, this side will fall within three suns, and the other rise to power with the help of one now listing toward both sides.

For a long time they will keep their heads raised high, holding the others down with crushing weight, no matter how these weep or squirm for shame.

Two just men there are, but no one listens, for pride, envy, avarice are the three sparks that kindle in men’s hearts and set them burning. ”

With this his mournful words came to an end. But I spoke back: “There’s more I want to know; I beg you to provide me with more facts:

Farinata and Tegghiaio, who were so worthy, Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, Mosca, and all the rest so bent on doing good,

where are they? Tell me what’s become of them; one great desire tortures me: to know whether they taste Heaven’s sweetness or Hell’s gall. ”

“They lie below with blacker souls, ” he said, “by different sins pushed down to different depths; if you keep going you may see them all.

But when you are once more in the sweet world I beg you to remind our friends of me. I speak no more; no more I answer you. ”

He twisted his straight gaze into a squint and stared a while at me, then bent his head, falling to join his other sightless peers.

My guide then said to me: “He’ll wake no more until the day the angel’s trumpet blows, when the unfriendly Judge shall come down here;

each soul shall find again his wretched tomb, assume his flesh and take his human shape, and hear his fate resound eternally. ”

And so we made our way through the filthy mess of muddy shades and slush, moving slowly, talking a little about the afterlife.

I said, “Master, will these torments be increased, or lessened, on the final Judgment Day, or will the pain be just the same as now? ”

And he: “Remember your philosophy: the closer a thing comes to its perfection, more keen will be its pleasure or its pain.

Although this cursèd race of punished souls shall never know the joy of true perfection, more perfect will their pain be then than now. ”

We circled round that curving road while talking of more than I shall mention at this time, and came to where the ledge begins descending;

there we found Plutus, mankind’s arch-enemy.