Circles of Hell Read online

  Dante Alighieri

  * * *

  CIRCLES OF HELL

  Translated by Robin Kirkpatrick

  Contents

  Canto III – Gates of Hell

  Canto V – The lustful

  Canto VI – The gluttonous

  Canto VIII – The wrathful and the melancholic

  Canto XIII – The violent against self

  Canto XVII – Passage to the Eighth Circle

  Canto XIX – Simonists

  Canto XXIV – Thieves

  Canto XXXIII – Traitors to nation and traitors to guests

  Canto XXXIV – Traitors to benefactors

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  DANTE ALIGHIERI

  Born 1265, Florence, Italy

  Died 1321, Ravenna, Italy

  Dante wrote the Divina Commedia between 1308 and 1321. This selection of cantos is taken from Inferno translated by Robin Kirkpatrick, Penguin Classics, 2006.

  DANTE IN PENGUIN CLASSICS

  Inferno

  Purgatorio

  Paradiso

  The Divine Comedy

  Vita Nuova

  Canto III

  GATES OF HELL

  ‘Through me you go to the grief-wracked city.

  Through me to everlasting pain you go.

  Through me you go and pass among lost souls.

  Justice inspired my exalted Creator.

  I am a creature of the Holiest Power,

  of Wisdom in the Highest and of Primal Love.

  Nothing till I was made was made, only

  eternal beings. And I endure eternally.

  Surrender as you enter every hope you have.’

  These were the words that – written in dark tones –

  I saw there, on the summit of a door.

  I turned: ‘Their meaning, sir, for me is hard.’

  And he in answering (as though he understood):

  ‘You needs must here surrender all your doubts.

  All taint of cowardice must here be dead.

  We now have come where, as I have said, you’ll see

  in suffering the souls of those who’ve lost

  the good that intellect desires to win.’

  And then he placed his hand around my own,

  he smiled, to give me some encouragement,

  and set me on to enter secret things.

  Sighing, sobbing, moans and plaintive wailing

  all echoed here through air where no star shone,

  and I, as this began, began to weep.

  Discordant tongues, harsh accents of horror,

  tormented words, the twang of rage, strident

  voices, the sound, as well, of smacking hands,

  together these all stirred a storm that swirled

  for ever in the darkened air where no time was,

  as sand swept up in breathing spires of wind.

  I turned, my head tight-bound in confusion,

  to say to my master: ‘What is it that I hear?

  Who can these be, so overwhelmed by pain?’

  ‘This baleful condition,’ he said, ‘is one

  that grips those souls whose lives, contemptibly,

  were void alike of honour and ill fame.

  These all co-mingle with a noisome choir

  of angels who – not rebels, yet not true

  to God – existed for themselves alone.

  To keep their beauty whole, the Heavens spurned them.

  Nor would the depths of Hell receive them in,

  lest truly wicked souls boast over them.’

  And I: ‘What can it be, so harsh, so heavy,

  that draws such loud lamentings from these crowds?’

  And he replied: ‘My answer can be brief:

  These have no hope that death will ever come.

  And so degraded is the life they lead

  all look with envy on all other fates.

  The world allows no glory to their name.

  Mercy and Justice alike despise them.

  Let us not speak of them. Look, then pass on.’

  I did look, intently. I saw a banner

  running so rapidly, whirling forwards,

  that nothing, it seemed, would ever grant a pause.

  Drawn by that banner was so long a trail

  of men and women I should not have thought

  that death could ever have unmade so many.

  A few I recognized. And then I saw –

  and knew beyond all doubt – the shadow of the one

  who made, from cowardice, the great denial.

  So I, at that instant, was wholly sure

  this congregation was that worthless mob

  loathsome alike to God and their own enemies.

  These wretched souls were never truly live.

  They now went naked and were sharply spurred

  by wasps and hornets, thriving all around.

  The insects streaked the face of each with blood.

  Mixing with tears, the lines ran down; and then

  were garnered at their feet by filthy worms.

  And when I’d got myself to look beyond,

  others, I saw, were ranged along the bank

  of some great stream. ‘Allow me, sir,’ I said,

  ‘to know who these might be. What drives them on,

  and makes them all (as far, in this weak light,

  as I discern) so eager for the crossing?’

  ‘That will, of course, be clear to you,’ he said,

  ‘when once our footsteps are set firm upon

  the melancholic shores of Acheron.’

  At this – ashamed, my eyes cast humbly down,

  fearing my words had weighed on him too hard –

  I held my tongue until we reached the stream.

  Look now! Towards us in a boat there came

  an old man, yelling, hair all white and aged,

  ‘Degenerates! Your fate is sealed! Cry woe!

  Don’t hope you’ll ever see the skies again!

  I’m here to lead you to the farther shore,

  into eternal shadow, heat and chill.

  And you there! You! Yes, you, the living soul!

  Get right away from this gang! These are dead.’

  But then, on seeing that I did not move:

  ‘You will arrive by other paths and ports.

  You’ll start your journey from a different beach.

  A lighter hull must carry you across.’

  ‘Charon,’ my leader, ‘don’t torment yourself.

  For this is willed where all is possible

  that is willed there. And so demand no more.’

  The fleecy wattles of the ferry man –

  who plied across the liverish swamp, eyeballs

  encircled by two wheels of flame – fell mute.

  But not the other souls. Naked and drained,

  their complexions changed. Their teeth began

  (hearing his raw command) to gnash and grind.

  They raged, blaspheming God and their own kin,

  the human race, the place and time, the seed

  from which they’d sprung, the day that they’d been born.

  And then they came together all as one,

  wailing aloud along the evil margin

  that waits for all who have no fear of God.

  Charon the demon, with his hot-coal eyes,

  glared what he meant to do. He swept all in.

  He struck at any dawdler with his oar.

  In autumn, leaves are lifted, one by one,

  away until the branch looks down and sees

  its tatters all arrayed upon the ground.

  In that same way did Adam’s evil seed

  hurtle, in sequence, from the river rim,

  as birds that answer to th
eir handler’s call.

  Then off they went, to cross the darkened flood.

  And, long before they’d landed over there,

  another flock assembled in their stead.

  Attentively, my master said: ‘All those,

  dear son, who perish in the wrath of God,

  meet on this shore, wherever they were born.

  And they are eager to be shipped across.

  Justice of God so spurs them all ahead

  that fear in them becomes that sharp desire.

  But no good soul will ever leave from here.

  And so when Charon thus complains of you,

  you may well grasp the sense that sounds within.’

  His words now done, the desolate terrain

  trembled with such great violence that the thought

  soaks me once more in a terrified sweat.

  The tear-drenched earth gave out a gust of wind,

  erupting in a flash of bright vermilion,

  that overwhelmed all conscious sentiment.

  I fell like someone gripped by sudden sleep.

  Canto V

  THE LUSTFUL

  And so from Circle One I now went down

  deeper, to Circle Two, which bounds a lesser space

  and therefore greater suffering. Its sting is misery.

  Minos stands there – horribly there – and barking.

  He, on the threshold, checks degrees of guilt,

  then judges and dispatches with his twirling tail.

  I mean that every ill-begotten creature,

  when summoned here, confesses everything.

  And he (his sense of sin is very fine)

  perceives what place in Hell best suits each one,

  and coils his tail around himself to tell

  the numbered ring to which he’ll send them down.

  Before him, always, stands a crowd of souls.

  By turns they go, each one, for sentencing.

  Each pleads, attends – and then is tipped below.

  ‘You there, arriving at this house of woe,’

  so, when he saw me there, the judge spoke forth,

  (to interrupt a while his formal role),

  ‘watch as you enter – and in whom you trust.

  Don’t let yourself be fooled by this wide threshold.’

  My leader’s thrust: ‘This yelling! Why persist?

  Do not impede him on his destined way.

  For this is willed where all is possible

  that is willed there. And so demand no more.’

  But now the tones of pain, continuing,

  demand I hear them out. And now I’ve come

  where grief and weeping pierce me at the heart.

  And so I came where light is mute, a place

  that moans as oceans do impelled by storms,

  surging, embattled in conflicting squalls.

  The swirling wind of Hell will never rest.

  It drags these spirits onwards in its force.

  It chafes them – rolling, clashing – grievously.

  Then, once they reach the point from which they fell …

  screams, keening cries, the agony of all,

  and all blaspheming at the Holy Power.

  Caught in this torment, as I understood,

  were those who – here condemned for carnal sin –

  made reason bow to their instinctual bent.

  As starlings on the wing in winter chills

  are borne along in wide and teeming flocks,

  so on these breathing gusts the evil souls.

  This way and that and up and down they’re borne.

  Here is no hope of any comfort ever,

  neither of respite nor of lesser pain.

  And now, as cranes go singing lamentations

  and form themselves through air in long-drawn lines,

  coming towards me, trailing all their sorrows,

  I saw new shadows lifted by this force.

  ‘Who are these people, sir?’ I said. ‘Tell me

  why black air scourges them so viciously.’

  ‘The first of those whose tale you wish to hear,’

  he answered me without a moment’s pause,

  ‘governed as empress over diverse tongues.

  She was so wracked by lust and luxury,

  licentiousness was legal under laws she made –

  to lift the blame that she herself incurred.

  This is Semiramis. Of her one reads

  that she, though heir to Ninus, was his bride.

  Her lands were those where now the Sultan reigns.

  The other, lovelorn, slew herself and broke

  her vow of faith to Sichaeus’s ashes.

  And next, so lascivious, Cleopatra.

  Helen. You see? Because of her, a wretched

  waste of years went by. See! Great Achilles.

  He fought with love until his final day.

  Paris you see, and Tristan there.’ And more

  than a thousand shadows he numbered, naming

  them all, whom Love had led to leave our life.

  Hearing that man of learning herald thus

  these chevaliers of old, and noble ladies,

  pity oppressed me and I was all but lost.

  ‘How willingly,’ I turned towards the poet,

  ‘I’d speak to those two there who go conjoined

  and look to be so light upon the wind.’

  And he to me: ‘You’ll see them clearer soon.

  When they are closer, call to them. Invoke

  the love that draws them on, and they will come.’

  The wind had swept them nearer to us now.

  I moved to them in words: ‘Soul-wearied creatures!

  Come, if none forbids, to us and, breathless, speak.’

  As doves, when called by their desires, will come –

  wings spreading high – to settle on their nest,

  borne through the air by their own steady will,

  so these two left the flock where Dido is.

  They came, approaching through malignant air,

  so strong for them had been my feeling cry.

  ‘Our fellow being, gracious, kind and good!

  You, on your journeying through this bruised air,

  here visit two who tinged the world with blood.

  Suppose the Sovereign of the Universe

  were still our friend, we’d pray He grant you peace.

  You pity so the ill perverting us.

  Whatever you may please to hear or say,

  we, as we hear, we, as we speak, assent,

  so long – as now they do – these winds stay silent.

  My native place is set along those shores

  through which the river Po comes down, to be

  at last at peace with all its tributaries.

  Love, who so fast brings flame to generous hearts,

  seized him with feeling for the lovely form,

  now torn from me. The harm of how still rankles.

  Love, who no loved one pardons love’s requite,

  seized me for him so strongly in delight

  that, as you see, he does not leave me yet.

  Love drew us onwards to consuming death.

  Cain’s ice awaits the one who quenched our lives.’

  These words, borne on to us from them, were theirs.

  And when I heard these spirits in distress,

  I bowed my eyes and held them low, until,

  at length, the poet said: ‘What thoughts are these?’

  I, answering in the end, began: ‘Alas,

  how many yearning thoughts, what great desire,

  have led them through such sorrow to their fate?’

  And turning to them now I came to say:

  ‘Francesca, how your suffering saddens me!

  Sheer pity brings me to the point of tears.

  But tell me this: the how of it – and why –

  that Love, in sweetness of such sighing hours,
/>   permitted you to know these doubtful pangs.’

  To me she said: ‘There is no sorrow greater

  than, in times of misery, to hold at heart

  the memory of happiness. (Your teacher knows.)

  And yet, if you so deeply yearn to trace

  the root from which the love we share first sprang,

  then I shall say – and speak as though in tears.

  One day we read together, for pure joy

  how Lancelot was taken in Love’s palm.

  We were alone. We knew no suspicion.

  Time after time, the words we read would lift

  our eyes and drain all colour from our faces.

  A single point, however, vanquished us.

  For when at last we read the longed-for smile

  of Guinevere – at last her lover kissed –

  he, who from me will never now depart,

  touched his kiss, trembling to my open mouth.

  This book was Galehault – pander-penned, the pimp!

  That day we read no further down those lines.’

  And all the while, as one of them spoke on,

  the other wept, and I, in such great pity,

  fainted away as though I were to die.

  And now I fell as bodies fall, for dead.

  Canto VI

  THE GLUTTONOUS

  As now I came once more to conscious mind –

  closed in those feelings for the kindred souls

  that had, in sudden sadness, overcome me –

  wherever I might turn I saw – wherever

  I might move or send my gaze –

  new forms of torment, new tormented souls.

  I am in Circle Three. And rain falls there,

  endlessly, chill, accursed and heavy,

  its rate and composition never new.

  Snow, massive hailstones, black, tainted water

  pour down in sheets through tenebrae of air.

  The earth absorbs it all and stinks, revoltingly.

  Cerberus, weird and monstrously cruel,

  barks from his triple throats in cur-like yowls

  over the heads of those who lie there, drowned.

  His eyes vermilion, beard a greasy black,

  his belly broad, his fingers all sharp-nailed,

  he mauls and skins, then hacks in four, these souls.

  From all of them, rain wrings a wet-dog howl.

  They squirm, as flank screens flank. They twist, they turn,

  and then – these vile profanities – they turn again.

  That reptile Cerberus now glimpsed us there.

  He stretched his jaws; he showed us all his fangs.

  And me? No member in my frame stayed still!