The Falsifiers (continued) — Canto XXX

Canto 30 of Inferno by Dante Alighieri

In the time when Juno was incensed Against the Theban blood on account of Semele, As she had shown already more than once, Athamas became so insane, that seeing His wife come laden upon either hand With her two sons, he cried: "Spread out the nets, So that I take the lioness and the cubs Upon the pass;" and then stretched forth his claws, Pitiless, seizing one who had the name Of Learchus, and whirled him and dashed him Upon a rock; and she drowned with the other.

And at the time when fortune downward hurled The Trojan's arrogance, that all things dared, So that the king was with his kingdom crushed, Hecuba sad, disconsolate, and captive, When lifeless she beheld Polyxena, And of her Polydorus on the shore Of the salt sea discovered the sad one, Frantic she barked, even as a dog; So much the anguish had her mind distorted.

But not of Thebes the furies nor the Trojan Were ever seen in any one so cruel, Not in the goading beasts, much less in human limbs, As I beheld two shadows pale and naked, Who, biting, in the manner ran along That a boar does, when from the sty turned loose.