The Portable Dante (18 page)

the grieving forest made a wreath around it, as the sad river of blood enclosed the woods. We stopped right here, right at the border line.

This wasteland was a dry expanse of sand, thick, burning sand, no different from the kind that Cato’s feet packed down in other times.

O just revenge of God! how awesomely you should be feared by everyone who reads these truths that were revealed to my own eyes!

Many separate herds of naked souls I saw, all weeping desperately; it seemed each group had been assigned a different penalty:

some souls were stretched out flat upon their backs, others were crouching there all tightly hunched, some wandered, never stopping, round and round.

Far more there were of those who roamed the sand and fewer were the souls stretched out to suffer, but their tongues were looser, for the pain was greater.

And over all that sandland, a fall of slowly raining broad flakes of fire showered steadily (a mountain snowstorm on a windless day),

like those that Alexander saw descending on his troops while crossing India’s torrid lands: flames falling, floating solid to the ground,

and he with all his men began to tread the sand so that the burning flames might be extinguished one by one before they joined.

Here too a never-ending blaze descended, kindling the sand like tinder under flint-sparks, and in this way the torment there was doubled.

Without a moment’s rest the rhythmic dance of wretched hands went on, this side, that side, brushing away the freshly fallen flames.

And I: “My master, you who overcome all opposition (except for those tough demons who came to meet us at the gate of Dis),

who is that mighty one that seems unbothered by burning, stretched sullen and disdainful there, looking as if the rainfall could not tame him?”

And that very one, who was quick to notice me inquiring of my guide about him, answered: “What I was once, alive, I still am, dead!

Let Jupiter wear out his smith, from whom he seized in anger that sharp thunderbolt he hurled, to strike me down, my final day;

let him wear out those others, one by one, who work the soot-black forge of Mongibello (as he shouts, ‘Help me, good Vulcan, I need your help, ’

the way he cried that time at Phlegra’s battle), and with all his force let him hurl his bolts at me, no joy of satisfaction would I give him!”

My guide spoke back at him with cutting force, (I never heard his voice so strong before): “O Capaneus, since your blustering pride

will not be stilled, you are made to suffer more: no torment other than your rage itself could punish your gnawing pride more perfectly. ”

And then he turned a calmer face to me, saying, “That was a king, one of the seven besieging Thebes; he scorned, and would seem still

to go on scorning God and treat him lightly, but, as I said to him, he decks his chest with ornaments of lavish words that prick him.

Now follow me and also pay attention not to put your feet upon the burning sand, but to keep them well within the wooded line. ”

Without exchanging words we reached a place where a narrow stream came gushing from the woods (its reddish water still runs fear through me!);

like the one that issues from the Bulicame, whose waters are shared by prostitutes downstream, it wore its way across the desert sand.

This river’s bed and banks were made of stone, so were the tops on both its sides; and then I understood this was our way across.

“Among the other marvels I have shown you, from the time we made our entrance through the gate whose threshold welcomes every evil soul,

your eyes have not discovered anything as remarkable as this stream you see here extinguishing the flames above its path. ”

These were my master’s words, and I at once implored him to provide me with the food for which he had given me the appetite.

“In the middle of the sea there lies a wasteland, ” he immediately began, “that is known as Crete, under whose king the world knew innocence.

There is a mountain there that was called Ida; then happy in its verdure and its streams, now deserted like an old, discarded thing;

Rhea chose it once as a safe cradle for her son, and, to conceal his presence better, she had her servants scream loud when he cried.

In the mountain’s core an ancient man stands tall; he has his shoulders turned toward Damietta and faces Rome as though it were his mirror.

His head is fashioned of the finest gold; pure silver are his arms and hands and chest; from there to where his legs spread, he is brass;

the rest of him is all of chosen iron, except his right foot which is terra cotta; he puts more weight on this foot than the other.

Every part of him, except the gold, is broken by a fissure dripping tears down to his feet, where they collect to erode the cavern’s rock;

from stone to stone they drain down here, becoming rivers: the Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon, then overflow down through this tight canal

until they fall to where all falling ends: they form Cocytus. What that pool is like I need not tell you. You will see, yourself. ”

And I to him: “If this small stream beside us has its source, as you have told me, in our world, why have we seen it only on this ledge?”

And he to me: “You know this place is round, and though your journey has been long, circling toward the bottom, turning only to the left,

you still have not completed a full circle; so you should never look surprised, as now, if you see something you have not seen before. ”

And I again: “Where, Master, shall we find Lethe and Phlegethon? You omit the first and say the other forms from the rain of tears. ”

“I am very happy when you question me, ” he said, “but that the blood-red water boiled should answer certainly one of your questions.

And Lethe you shall see, but beyond this valley, at a place where souls collect to wash themselves when penitence has freed them of their guilt.

Now it is time to leave this edge of woods, ” he added. “Be sure you follow close behind me: the margins are our road, they do not burn,

and all the flames above them are extinguished. ”

Now one of those stone margins bears us on and the river’s vapors hover like a shade, sheltering the banks and the water from the flames.

As the Flemings, living with the constant threat of flood tides rushing in between Wissant and Bruges, build their dikes to force the sea back;

as the Paduans build theirs on the shores of Brenta to protect their town and homes before warm weather turns Chiarentana’s snow to rushing water—

so were these walls we walked upon constructed, though the engineer, whoever he may have been, did not make them as high or thick as those.

We had left the wood behind (so far behind, by now, that if I had stopped to turn around, I am sure it could no longer have been seen)

when we saw a troop of souls come hurrying toward us beside the bank, and each of them looked us up and down, as some men look

at other men, at night, when the moon is new. They strained their eyebrows, squinting hard at us, as an old tailor might at his needle’s eye.

Eyed in such a way by this strange crew, I was recognized by one of them, who grabbed my garment’s hem and shouted: “How marvelous!”

And I, when he reached out his arm toward me, straining my eyes, saw through his face’s crust, through his burned features that could not prevent

my memory from bringing back his name; and bending my face down to meet with his, I said: “Is this really you, here, Ser Brunetto?”

And he: “O my son, may it not displease you if Brunetto Latini lets his troop file on while he walks at your side for a little while. ”

And I: “With all my heart I beg you to, and if you wish me to sit here with you, I will, if my companion does not mind. ”

“My son, ” he said, “a member of this herd who stops one moment lies one hundred years unable to brush off the wounding flames,

so, move on; I shall follow at your hem and then rejoin my family that moves along, lamenting their eternal pain. ”

I did not dare step off the margin-path to walk at his own level but, with head bent low in reverence, I moved along.

He began: “What fortune or what destiny leads you down here before your final hour? And who is this one showing you the way?”

“Up there above in the bright living life before I reached the end of all my years, I lost myself in a valley, ” I replied;

“just yesterday at dawn I turned from it. This spirit here appeared as I turned back, and by this road he guides me home again. ”

He said to me: “Follow your constellation and you cannot fail to reach your port of glory, not if I saw clearly in the happy life;

and if I had not died just when I did, I would have cheered you on in all your work, seeing how favorable Heaven was to you.

But that ungrateful and malignant race which descended from the Fiesole of old, and still have rock and mountain in their blood,

will become, for your good deeds, your enemy— and right they are: among the bitter berries there’s no fit place for the sweet fig to bloom.

They have always had the fame of being blind, an envious race, proud and avaricious; you must not let their ways contaminate you.

Your destiny reserves such honors for you: both parties shall be hungry to devour you, but the grass will not be growing where the goat is.

Let the wild beasts of Fiesole make fodder of each other, and let them leave the plant untouched (so rare it is that one grows in their dung-heap)

in which there lives again the holy seed of those remaining Romans who survived there when this new nest of malice was constructed. ”