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So I descended from first to second circle-- Which girdles a smaller space and greater pain, Which spurs more lamentation. Minos the dreadful Snarls at the gate. He examines each one's sin, Judging and disposing as he curls his tail: That is, when an ill-begotten soul comes down, It comes before him, and confesses all; Minos, great connoisseur of sin, discerns For every spirit its proper place in Hell, And wraps himself in his tail with as many turns As levels down that shade will have to dwell. A crowd is always waiting: here each one learns His judgment and is assigned a place in Hell. They tell; they hear--and down they all are cast. "You, who have come to sorrow's hospice, think well," Said Minos, who at the sight of me had paused To interrupt his solemn task mid-deed: "Beware how you come in and whom you trust, Don't be deceived because the gate is wide." My leader answered, "Must you too scold this way? His destined path is not for you to impede: Thus it is willed where every thing may be Because it has been willed. So ask no more." And now I can hear the notes of agony In sad crescendo beginning to reach my ear; Now I am where the noise of lamentation Comes at me in blasts of sorrow. I am where All light is mute, with a bellowing like the ocean Turbulent in a storm of warring winds, The hurricane of Hell in perpetual motion Sweeping the ravaged spirits as it rends, Twists, and torments them. Driven as if to land, They reach the ruin: groaning, tears, laments, And cursing of the power of Heaven. I learned They suffer here who sinned in carnal things-- Their reason mastered by desire, suborned. As winter starlings riding on their wings Form crowded flocks, so spirits dip and veer Foundering in the wind's rough buffetings, Upward or downward, driven here and there With never ease from pain nor hope of rest. As chanting cranes will form a line in air, So I saw souls come uttering cries--wind-tossed, And lofted by the storm. "Master," I cried, "Who are those people, by black air oppressed?" "First among these you wish to know," he said, "Was empress of many tongues--she so embraced Lechery that she decreed it justified Legally, to evade the scandal of her lust: She is Semiramis of whom we read, Successor and wife of Ninus, she possessed The lands the Sultan rules. Next, she who died By her own hand for love, and broke her vow To Sychaeus's ashes. After her comes lewd And wanton Cleopatra. See Helen, too, Who caused a cycle of many evil years; And great Achilles, the hero whom love slew In his last battle. Paris and Tristan are here--" He pointed out by name a thousand souls Whom love had parted from our life, or more. When I had heard my teacher tell the rolls Of knights and ladies of antiquity, Pity overwhelmed me. Half-lost in its coils, "Poet," I told him, "I would willingly Speak with those two who move along together, And seem so light upon the wind." And he: "When they drift closer--then entreat them hither, In the name of love that leads them: They will respond." Soon their course shifted, and the merciless weather Battered them toward us. I called against the wind, "O wearied souls! If Another does not forbid, Come speak with us." As doves whom desire has summoned, With raised wings steady against the current, glide Guided by will to the sweetness of their nest, So leaving the flock where Dido was, the two sped Through the malignant air till they had crossed To where we stood--so strong was the compulsion Of my loving call. They spoke across the blast: "O living soul, who with courtesy and compassion Voyage through black air visiting us who stained The world with blood: If heaven's King bore affection For such as we are, suffering in this wind, Then we would pray to Him to grant you peace For pitying us in this, our evil end. Now we will speak and hear as you may please To speak and hear, while the wind, for our discourse, Is still. My birthplace is a city that lies Where the Po finds peace with all its followers. Love, which in gentle hearts is quickly born, Seized him for my fair body--which, in a fierce Manner that still torments my soul, was torn Untimely away from me. Love, which absolves None who are loved from loving, made my heart burn With joy so strong that as you see it cleaves Still to him, here. Love gave us both one death. Caina awaits the one who took our lives." These words were borne across from them to us. When I had heard those afflicted souls, I lowered My head, and held it so till I heard the voice Of the poet ask, "What are you thinking?" I answered, "Alas--that sweet conceptions and passion so deep Should bring them here!" Then, looking up toward The lovers: "Francesca, your suffering makes me weep For sorrow and pity--but tell me, in the hours Of sweetest sighing, how and in what shape Or manner did Love first show you those desires So hemmed by doubt?" And then she to me: "No sadness Is greater than in misery to rehearse Memories of joy, as your teacher well can witness. But if you have so great a craving to measure Our love's first root, I'll tell it, with the fitness Of one who weeps and tells. One day, for pleasure, We read of Lancelot, by love constrained: Alone, suspecting nothing, at our leisure. Sometimes at what we read our glances joined, Looking from the book each to the other's eyes, And then the color in our faces drained. But one particular moment alone it was Defeated us: the longed-for smile, it said, Was kissed by that most noble lover: at this, This one, who will now never leave my side, Kissed my mouth, trembling. A Galeotto, that book! And so was he who wrote it; that day we read No further." All the while the one shade spoke, The other at her side was weeping; my pity Overwhelmed me and I felt myself go slack: Swooning as in death, I fell like a dying body. |
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