The Falsifiers — Canto XXIX

The many people and the divers wounds These eyes of mine had so inebriated, That they were wishful to stand still and weep; But Virgil said to me: "What dost thou still gaze at? Why is thy sight still riveted down there Among the mournful, mutilated shades? Thou hast not done so at the other Bolgias; Consider, if to count them thou believest, That two-and-twenty miles the valley winds.

And already is the moon beneath our feet; The time is short that now to us is granted, And more is to be seen than what thou seest."

"If thou hadst," I thereupon made answer, "Attended to the cause for which I looked, Perhaps a longer stay thou wouldst have pardoned." Meanwhile my Guide departed, and behind him I went, already making my reply, And superadding: "In that cavern where I held mine eyes with such attention fixed, I think a spirit of my blood laments The sin which costs so much there down below."

Then said the Master: "Be no longer broken Thy thought from this time forward upon him; Attend elsewhere, and there let him remain; For him I saw below the little bridge, Pointing at thee, and threatening with his finger Fiercely, and heard him called Geri del Bello. So wholly at that time wast thou impeded By him who formerly held Altaforte, Thou didst not look that way; so he departed."

"O my Conductor, his own violent death, Which is not yet avenged for him," I said, "By any who is sharer of the shame, Made him disdainful; whence he went away, As I imagine, without speaking to me, And thereby made me pity him the more."

Thus did we speak as far as the first place Upon the crag, which the next valley shows Down to the bottom, if there were more light. When we were now right over the last cloister Of Malebolge, so that its lay-brothers Could manifest themselves unto our sight, Lamentations pierced me manifold, which had Their arrows barbed with pity, so that I My ears did cover with both of my hands.

What pain would be, if from the hospitals Of Valdichiana, 'twixt July and September, And of Maremma and Sardinia All the diseases in one moat were gathered, Such was it here, and such a stench came from it As from putrescent limbs is wont to issue.

We had descended on the farthest bank From the long crag, upon the left hand still, And then more vivid was my power of sight Down tow'rds the bottom, where the ministress Of the High Lord, Justice infallible, Doth punish forgers who are here enrolled.

I do not think a sadder sight to see Was in Aegina the whole people sick, (When was the air so full of pestilence, The animals, down to the little worm, All fell, and afterwards the ancient people, According as the poets hold for certain, Were from the seed of ants restored again,) Than it was to behold through that dark valley The spirits languishing in divers heaps.

This on the belly, that upon the back One of the other lay, and others crawling Shifted themselves along the dismal road. We step by step went onward without speech, Gazing upon and listening to the sick Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies.

I saw two sitting leaned against each other, As leans in heating one pan 'gainst another, From head to foot bespotted o'er with scabs; And never saw I plied a currycomb By stable-boy for whom his master waits, Or him who keeps awake unwillingly, As every one was plying fast the bite Of nails upon himself, for the great rage Of itching which no other succour had.

And the nails downward with them dragged the scab, In fashion as a knife the scales of bream, Or any other fish that has them largest. "O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee," Began my Leader unto one of them, "And who dost make of them sometimes thy pincers, Tell me if any Latian is with those Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee To all eternity unto this work."

"Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest, Both of us here," replied the one lamenting; "But who art thou, that questionest about us?" And said the Guide: "One am I who descends Down with this living man from cliff to cliff, And I intend to show Hell unto him."

Then broken was their mutual support; And trembling each one turned himself to me, With others who had heard him by rebound. The good Master drew close unto me, saying: "Say unto them whate'er thou wishest;" And I began, since he would have it so: "So may your memory not steal away In the first world from out the minds of men, But so may it survive 'neath many suns, Say to me who ye are, and of what people; Let not your unsightly and disgusting punishment Deter you from disclosing you to me."

"I was of Arezzo, and Albero of Siena," Replied the one, "had me burned; but what I died for does not lead me here. 'Tis true I said to him, speaking in jest, I knew how to uplift myself by flight, And he, who had thin fancy and small wit, Would have me show to him the art; and only Because a Daedalus I did not make him, By one who held him as a son caused me To be burned; but in the last of the ten Bolgias, For alchemy I practised in the world, Minos, who cannot err, condemned me here."

And to the Poet said I: "Now was ever So vain a people as the Sienese? Not for a certainty the French by much." Whereat the other leper, who had heard me, Replied unto my speech: "Taking out Stricca, Who knew the art of moderate expenses, And Niccolo, who the luxurious use Of cloves discovered earliest of all Within the garden where such seed takes root; And taking out the brigade, in which Dissipated Caccia d'Ascian his vineyards And his vast wit, and Abbagliato showed."

"But, that thou know who thus doth second thee Against the Sienese, make sharp thine eye Towards me, so that my face well answer thee, And thou shalt see I am Capocchio's shade, Who metals falsified by alchemy; Thou must remember, if I well descry thee, How I a skilful ape of nature was."