Divine Comedy: Inferno | Page 9

ended which had pierced
my heart with fear, I looked on high, and saw its shoulders clothed
already with the rays of the planet[1] that leadeth men aright along
every path. Then was the fear a little quieted which in the lake of my
heart had lasted through the night that I passed so piteously. And even

as one who with spent breath, issued out of the sea upon the shore,
turns to the perilous water and gazes, so did my soul, which still was
flying, turn back to look again upon the pass which never had a living
person left.
[1] The sun, a planet according to the Ptolemaic system.
After I had rested a little my weary body I took my way again along the
desert slope, so that the firm foot was always the lower. And ho! almost
at the beginning of the steep a
she-leopard, light and very nimble,
which was covered with a spotted coat. And she did not move from
before my face, nay, rather hindered so my road that to return I
oftentimes had
turned.
The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the Sun was
mounting upward with those stars that were with him when Love
Divine first set in motion those beautiful things;[1] so that the hour of
the time and the sweet season were occasion of good hope to me
concerning that wild beast with the dappled skin. But not so that the
sight which appeared to me of a lion did not give me fear. He seemed
to be coming against me, with head high and with ravening hunger, so
that it seemed that the air was affrighted at him. And a she-wolf,[2]
who with all cravings seemed laden in her meagreness, and already had
made many folk to live forlorn,--she caused me so much heaviness,
with the fear that came from sight of her, that I lost hope of the height
And such as he is who gaineth willingly, and the time arrives that
makes him lose, who in all his thoughts weeps and is sad,--such made
me the beast without repose that, coming on against me, little by little
was pushing me back thither where the Sun is silent.
[1] According to old tradition the spring was the season of the creation.
[2] These three beasts correspond to the triple division of sins into
those of incontinence, of violence, and of fraud. See Canto XI.
While I was falling back to the low place, before mine eyes appeared
one who through long silence seemed hoarse. When I saw him in the
great desert, "Have pity on me!" I cried to him, "whatso thou art, or

shade or real man." He answered me: "Not man; man once I was, and
my parents were Lombards, and Mantuans by country both. I was born
sub Julio, though late, and I lived at Rome under the good Augustus, in
the time of the false and lying gods. Poet was I, and sang of that just
son of Anchises who came from Troy after proud Ilion had been burned.
But thou, why returnest thou to so great annoy? Why dost thou not
ascend the delectable mountain which is the source and cause of every
joy?"
"Art thou then that Virgil and that fount which poureth forth so large a
stream of speech?" replied I to him with bashful front: "O honor and
light of the other poem I may the long seal avail me, and the great love,
which have made me search thy volume! Thou art my master and my
author; thou alone art he from whom I took the fair style that hath done
me honor. Behold the beast because of which I turned; help me against
her, famous sage, for she makes any veins and pulses tremble." "Thee it
behoves to hold another course," he replied, when he saw me weeping,
"if thou wishest to escape from this savage place; for this beast,
because of which thou criest out, lets not any one pass along her way,
but so hinders him that she kills him! and she has a nature so malign
and evil that she never sates her greedy will, and after food is hungrier
than before. Many are the animals with which she wives, and there
shall be more yet, till the hound [1] shall come that will make her die of
grief. He shall not feed on land or goods, but wisdom and love and
valor, and his birthplace shall be between Feltro and Feltro. Of that
humble
[2] Italy shall he be the salvation, for which the virgin Camilla died,
and Euryalus, Turnus and Nisus of their wounds. He shall hunt her
through every town till he shall have set her back in hell, there whence
envy