34

"Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni Towards us; therefore look in front of thee," My Master said, "if thou discernest him."

As, when there breathes a heavy fog, or when Our hemisphere is darkening into night, Appears far off a mill the wind is turning, Methought that such a building then I saw; And, for the wind, I drew me back behind My Guide, because there was no other shelter.

Now was I, and with fear in verse I put it, There where the shades were wholly covered up, And glimmered through like unto straws in glass. Some prone are lying, others stand erect, This with the head, and that one with the soles; Another, bow-like, face to feet inverts.

When we had gone so far upon our way, That it my Master pleased to show to me The creature who once had the beauteous semblance, He from before me moved and made me stop, Saying: "Behold Dis, and behold the place Where thou with fortitude must arm thyself."

How frozen I became and powerless then, Ask it not, Reader, for I write it not, Because all language would be insufficient. I did not die, and I alive remained not; Think for thyself now, hast thou aught of wit, What I became, being of both deprived.

The Emperor of the kingdom dolorous From his mid-breast forth issued from the ice; And better with a giant I compare Than do the giants with those arms of his; Consider now how great must be that whole, Which unto such a part conforms itself.

Were he as fair once, as he now is foul, And lifted up his brow against his Maker, Well may proceed from him all tribulation. O, what a marvel it appeared to me, When I beheld three faces on his head! The one in front, and that vermilion was;

Two were the others, that were joined with this Above the middle part of either shoulder, And they were joined together at the crest; And the right-hand one seemed 'twixt white and yellow; The left was such to look upon as those Who come from where the Nile falls valley-ward.

Underneath each came forth two mighty wings, Such as befitting were so great a bird; Sails of the sea I never saw so large. No feathers had they, but as of a bat Their fashion was; and he was waving them, So that three winds proceeded forth therefrom. Thereby Cocytus wholly was congealed. With six eyes did he weep, and down three chins Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.

At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching A sinner, in the manner of a brake, So that he three of them tormented thus. To him in front the biting was as naught Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine Utterly stripped of all the skin remained.

"That soul up there which has the greatest pain," The Master said, "is Judas Iscariot; With head inside, he plies his legs without. Of the other two, who head downward are, The one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus; See how he writhes himself, and speaks no word. And the other, Cassius, who appears so large of limb. But night is reascending, and 'tis time That we depart, for we have seen the whole."

As seemed him good, I clasped him round the neck, And he the vantage seized of time and place, And when the wings were opened wide apart, He caught fast hold upon the shaggy sides; From fell to fell descended downward then Between the thick hair and the frozen crusts.

When we were come to where the thigh revolves Exactly on the thickness of the haunch, The Guide, with labour and with hard-drawn breath, Turned round his head where he had had his legs, And grappled to the hair, as one who mounts, So that to Hell I thought we were returning.

"Cling fast to me, for by such stairs as these," The Master said, panting as one fatigued, "Must we perforce depart from so much evil." Then through the opening of a rock he issued, And down upon the margin seated me; Then tow'rds me he outstretched his wary step.

I lifted up mine eyes and thought to see Lucifer in the same way I had left him; And I beheld him upward hold his legs. And if I then became perplexed, let those Think of it who do not perceive what point It was that I had passed beyond.

"Rise up," the Master said, "upon thy feet; The way is long, and difficult the road, And now the sun to middle-Loss returns." It was no palace corridor in which We then were standing, but a natural dungeon Which had an evil floor, and want of light.

"Ere I tear myself from the Abyss," Said I, when I had risen, "O my Master, To draw me from an error speak a little; Where is the ice? and how is this one fixed Thus upside down? and how in such short time From eve to morn has the sun made his transit?"

And he to me: "Thou still imaginest Thou art beyond the centre, where I grasped The hair of the fell worm, who mines the world. That side thou wast, so long as I descended; When round I turned me, thou didst pass the point To which things heavy draw from every side. And thou art now arrived beneath the hemisphere Opposite that which canopies the great Dry-Loss; and thou thy feet dost set upon The little sphere that forms the other face Of the Judecca. Here it is morn When over there it is evening; and this one, Who made for us a stairway with his hair, Is still fixed fast, even as he was before."

"Upon this side he fell down out of Heaven; And all the land, that whilom here emerged, For fear of him made of the sea a veil, And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure To flee from him, what on this side appears Left the void place here, and ran back upward."

A place there is below, from Beelzebub As far receding as the tomb extends, Which not by sight is known, but by the sound Of a small rivulet, that there descendeth Through a hollow in the rock, which it has gnawed With course that winds about and slightly falls.

The Guide and I into that hidden road Now entered, to return to the bright world; And without care of having any rest We mounted up, he first and I the second, Till I beheld through a round aperture Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear; Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.