Circles of Hell Read online

  goes in, then grumbles up and down, as though

  (poor sod) he couldn’t find a thing to do,

  till, out once more, he fills his wicker trug,

  with hope, at least. No time at all! The features

  of the world transform. He grabs his goad.

  Outdoors, he prods his lambs to open pasture.

  In some such way, I too was first dismayed

  to see distress so written on my leader’s brow.

  But he, as quickly, plastered up the hurt.

  And so, arriving at the ruined bridge,

  my leader turned that sour-sweet look on me

  that first he’d shown me at the mountain foot.

  He spread his arms, then, having in his thought

  surveyed the landslip, and (a man of sense)

  assessed it well, he took me in his grip.

  Then, always with adjustments in his moves

  (so that, it seemed, he foresaw everything),

  in hauling me towards the pinnacle

  of one moraine, he’d see a spur beyond

  and say: ‘Next, take your hold on that niche there.

  But test it first to see how well it bears.’

  This was no route for someone warmly dressed.

  Even for us – he, weightless, shoving me –

  we hardly could progress from ledge to ledge.

  Had not the gradient been less severe

  than that which faced it on the other side,

  I’d have been beat. I cannot speak for him.

  But Rottenpockets slopes towards the flap

  that opens on the lowest sump of all,

  and so, in contour, every ditch is shaped

  with one rim proud, the other dipping down.

  So, in the end, we came upon the point

  where one last building block had sheared away.

  My lungs by now had so been milked of breath

  that, come so far, I couldn’t make it further.

  I flopped, in fact, when we arrived, just there.

  ‘Now you must needs,’ my teacher said, ‘shake off

  your wonted indolence. No fame is won

  beneath the quilt or sunk in feather cushions.

  Whoever, fameless, wastes his life away,

  leaves of himself no greater mark on earth

  than smoke in air or froth upon the wave.

  So upwards! On! And vanquish laboured breath!

  In any battle mind power will prevail,

  unless the weight of body loads it down.

  There’s yet a longer ladder you must scale.

  You can’t just turn and leave all these behind.

  You understand? Well, make my words avail.’

  So up I got, pretending to more puff

  than, really, I could feel I’d got within.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I answered, ‘I’m all strength and dash.’

  Upwards we made our way, along the cliff –

  poor, narrow-going where the rocks jut out,

  far steeper than the slope had been before.

  Talking (to seem less feeble) on I went,

  when, issuing from the ditch beyond, there came

  a voice – though one unfit for human words.

  I made no sense of it. But now I neared

  the arch that forms a span across that pocket.

  The speaker seemed much moved by raging ire.

  Downwards I bent. But in such dark as that,

  no eye alive could penetrate the depths.

  But, ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘make for the other edge,

  and let us then descend the pocket wall.

  From here I hear but do not understand.

  So, too, I see, yet focus not at all.’

  ‘I offer you,’ he said to me, ‘no answer

  save “just do it”. Noble demands, by right,

  deserve the consequence of silent deeds.’

  So where the bridgehead meets Embankment Eight

  we then went down, pursuing our descent,

  so all that pocket was displayed to me.

  And there I came to see a dreadful brood

  of writhing reptiles of such diverse kinds

  the memory drains the very blood from me.

  Let Libya boast – for all her sand – no more!

  Engender as she may chelydri, pharae,

  chenchres and amphisbaenae, jaculi,

  never – and, yes, add Ethiopia, too,

  with all, beyond the Red Sea, dry and waste –

  has she displayed so many vicious pests.

  And through all this abundance, bitter and grim,

  in panic naked humans ran – no holes

  to hide in here or heliotropic charms.

  Behind their backs, the sinners’ hands were bound

  by snakes. These sent both tail and neck between

  the buttocks, then formed the ends in knots up front.

  And near our point, at one of them (just look!)

  a serpent headlong hurled itself and pierced

  exactly at the knit of spine and nape.

  Then, faster than you scribble ‘i’ or ‘o’,

  that shape caught fire, flash-flared and then (needs must)

  descended in cascading showers of ash.

  There, lying in destruction on the ground,

  the dead dust gathered of its own accord,

  becoming instantly the self it was.

  Compare: the phoenix (as the sages say)

  will come to its five-hundredth year, then die,

  but then, on its own pyre, be born anew.

  Its lifelong food is neither grass nor grain,

  but nurture drawn from weeping balm and incense.

  Its shroud, at last, is fume of nard and myrrh.

  The sinner, first, drops down as someone might

  when grappled down, not knowing how, by demons

  (or else some other epileptic turn),

  who then, on rising, gazes all around,

  bewildered by the overwhelming ill

  that came just now upon him, sighing, staring.

  So, too, this sinner, getting to his feet.

  What power and might in God! How harsh it is!

  How great the torrent of its vengeful blows!

  My leader then demanded who he was.

  ‘I pelted down’ – the sinner, in reply –

  ‘to this wild gorge, right now, from Tuscany.

  Beast living suited me, not human life,

  the mule that once I was. I’m Johnny Fucci,

  animal. Pistoia is my proper hole.’

  I to my leader: ‘Tell him, “Don’t rush off!”

  and make him say what guilt has thrust him down.

  I’ve seen him. He’s a man of blood and wrath.’

  The sinner, hearing this, made no pretence.

  He fixed on me a concentrated eye,

  and coloured up in brash embarrassment.

  ‘It pisses me right off,’ he then declared,

  ‘far more than being ripped away from life,

  that you have got to see me in this misery.

  I can’t say “no” to what you ask of me.

  I’m stuck down here so deep ’cos it was me,

  the thief who nicked the silver from the sanctuary.

  Then I just lied – to grass up someone else.

  You won’t, however, laugh at seeing this.

  If ever you return from these dark dives,

  prick up your ears and hear my prophecy:

  Pistoia first will slim and lose its Blacks.

  Then Florence, too, renews its laws and ranks.

  Mars draws up fireballs from the Val di Magra,

  wrapped all around in clouds and turbulence.

  And these, in acrid, ever-driven storms,

  will battle high above the Picene acre.

  A rapid bolt will rend the clouds apart,

  and every single White be seared by wounds.

  I tell you this. I want it
all to hurt.’

  Canto XXXIII

  TRAITORS TO NATION AND TRAITORS TO GUESTS

  Jaws lifted now from that horrible dish,

  the sinner – wiping clean each lip on hair that fringed

  the mess he’d left the head in, at its rear –

  began: ‘You ask that I should tell anew

  the pain that hopelessly, in thought alone,

  before I voice it, presses at my heart.

  Yet if I may, by speaking, sow the fruit

  of hate to slur this traitor, caught between my teeth,

  then words and tears, you’ll see, will flow as one.

  Who you might be, I do not know, nor how

  you’ve come to be down here. But when you speak,

  you seem (there’s little doubt) a Florentine.

  You need to see: I was Count Ugolino.

  This is Ruggieri, the archbishop, there.

  I’ll tell you now why we two are so close.

  That I, in consequence of his vile thoughts,

  was captured – though I trusted in this man –

  and after died, I do not need to say.

  But this cannot have carried to your ears:

  that is, how savagely I met my death.

  You’ll hear it now, and know if he has injured me.

  One scant slit in the walls of Eaglehouse

  (because of me, they call it now the Hunger Tower.

  Be sure, though: others will be locked up there)

  had shown me, in the shaft that pierces it,

  many new moons by now, when this bad dream

  tore wide the veil of what my future was.

  This thing here then appeared to me as Master

  of the Hounds, who tracked the wolf – his cubs as well –

  out on the hill where Lucca hides from Pisa.

  In front, as leaders of the pack, he placed

  the clans Gualandi, Sismond and Lanfranchi,

  their bitches hunting eager, lean and smart.

  The chase was brief. Father and sons, it seemed,

  were wearying; and soon – or so it seemed –

  I saw those sharp fangs raking down their flanks.

  I woke before the day ahead had come,

  and heard my sons (my little ones were there)

  cry in their sleep and call out for some food.

  How hard you are if, thinking what my heart

  foretold, you do not feel the pain of it.

  Whatever will you weep for, if not that?

  By now they all had woken up. The time

  was due when, as routine, our food was brought.

  Yet each was doubtful, thinking of their dream.

  Listening, I heard the door below locked shut,

  then nailed in place against that dreadful tower.

  I looked in their dear faces, spoke no word.

  I did not weep. Inward, I turned to stone.

  They wept. And then my boy Anselmo spoke:

  “What are you staring at? Father, what’s wrong?”

  And so I held my tears in check and gave

  no answer all that day, nor all the night

  that followed on, until another sun came up.

  A little light had forced a ray into

  our prison, so full of pain. I now could see

  on all four faces my own expression.

  Out of sheer grief, I gnawed on both my hands.

  And they – who thought I did so from an urge

  to eat – all, on the instant, rose and said:

  “Father, for us the pain would be far less

  if you would chose to eat us. You, having dressed us

  in this wretched flesh, ought now to strip it off.”

  So I kept still, to not increase their miseries.

  And that day and the day beyond, we all were mute.

  Hard, cruel earth, why did you not gape wide?

  As then we reached the fourth of all those days,

  Gaddo pitched forward, stretching at my feet.

  “Help me,” he said. “Why don’t you help me, Dad!”

  And there he died. You see me here. So I saw them,

  the three remaining, falling one by one

  between the next days – five and six – then let

  myself, now blind, feel over them, calling

  on each, now all were dead, for two days more.

  Then hunger proved a greater power than grief.’

  His words were done. Now, eyes askew, he grabbed

  once more that miserable skull – his teeth,

  like any dog’s teeth, strong against the bone.

  Pisa, you scandal of the lovely land

  where ‘yes’ is uttered in the form of sì,

  your neighbours may be slow to punish you,

  but let those reefs, Capraia and Gorgogna,

  drift, as a barrage, to the Arno’s mouth,

  so that your people – every one – are drowned.

  So what if – as the rumour goes – the great Count

  Ugolino did cheat fortresses from you.

  You had no right to crucify his children.

  Pisa, you are a newborn Thebes! Those boys

  were young. That made them innocent. I’ve named

  just two. I now name Uguiccione and Brigata.

  We now moved on, and came to where the ice

  so roughly swaddled yet another brood.

  And these – not hunched – bend back for all to view.

  They weep. Yet weeping does not let them weep.

  Their anguish meets a blockage at the eye.

  Turned in, this only makes their heartache more.

  Their tears first cluster into frozen buds,

  and then – as though a crystal visor – fill

  the socket of the eye beneath each brow.

  My own face now – a callus in the chill –

  had ceased to be a throne to any kind

  of sentiment. And yet, in spite of all,

  it seemed I felt a wind still stirring here.

  ‘Who moves these currents, sir?’ I now inquired.

  ‘At depths like these, aren’t vapours wholly spent?’

  He in reply: ‘Come on, come on! You soon

  will stand where your own probing eye shall see

  what brings this drizzling exhalation on.’

  A case of icy-eye-scab now yelled out:

  ‘You must be souls of such malignancy

  you merit placement in the lowest hole.

  Prise off this rigid veil, to clear my eyes.

  Let me awhile express the grief that swells

  in my heart’s womb before my tears next freeze.’

  I answered: ‘Are you asking help from me?

  Tell me who you are. Then I’ll free your gaze,

  or travel – promise! – to the deepest ice.’

  ‘I,’ he replied, ‘am Brother Alberigo,

  I of the Evil Orchard, Fruiterer.

  Here I receive exquisite dates for figs.’

  ‘Oh,’ I now said, ‘so you’re already dead?’

  ‘Well, how my body fares above,’ he said,

  ‘still in the world, my knowledge is not sure.

  There is, in Ptolomea, this advantage,

  that souls will frequently come falling down

  before Fate Atropos has granted them discharge.

  I very willingly will tell you more,

  but only scrape this tear glaze from my face.

  The instant any soul commits, like me,

  some act of treachery, a demon takes

  possession of that body-form and rules

  its deeds until its time is done. Swirling,

  the soul runs downwards to this sink. And so

  the body of that shade behind – a-twitter

  all this winter through – still seems up there, perhaps.

  You’re bound to know, arriving only now,

  that this is Signor Branca (“Hookhand”) d’Oria.

  Years
have gone by since he was ice-packed here.’

  ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that this must be a con.

  For how can Branca d’Oria be dead?

  He eats and drinks and sleeps and puts his clothes on.’

  ‘Recall that ditch,’ he said, ‘named Rotklorsville,

  where, higher up, they brew adhesive pitch?

  Well, long before Mike Zanche got to that,

  Hookhand was history. He, as proxy, left

  a devil in his skin (his kinsman’s here as well,

  the one who planned with him the double-cross).

  But please, now reach your hand to me down here.

  Open my eyes for me.’ I did not open them.

  To be a swine in this case was pure courtesy.

  You Genovese, deviant, deranged

  and stuffed with every sort of vicious canker!

  Why have you not been wiped yet from the earth?

  Among the worst of all the Romagnuoli

  I found there one of yours, whose works were such

  his soul already bathes in Cocytus.

  His body, seemingly, lives on above.

  Canto XXXIV

  TRAITORS TO BENEFACTORS

  ‘Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni,

  marching towards us. Fix your eyes ahead,’

  my teacher said, ‘and see if you can see it.’

  As though a windmill when a thick fog breathes –

  or else when dark night grips our hemisphere –

  seen from a distance, turning in the wind,

  so there a great contraption had appeared.

  And I now shrank, against the wind, behind

  my guide. There were no glades to shelter in.

  I was by now (I write this verse in fear)

  where all the shades in ice were covered up,

  transparent as are straws preserved in glass.

  Some lay there flat, and some were vertical,

  one with head raised, another soles aloft,

  another like a bow, bent face to feet.

  And then when we had got still further on,

  where now my master chose to show to me

  that creature who had once appeared so fair,

  he drew away from me and made me stop,

  saying: ‘Now see! Great Dis! Now see the place

  where you will need to put on all your strength.’

  How weak I now became, how faded, dry –

  reader, don’t ask, I shall not write it down –

  for anything I said would fall far short.

  I neither died nor wholly stayed alive.

  Just think yourselves, if your minds are in flower,

  what I became, bereft of life and death.

  The emperor of all these realms of gloom

  stuck from the ice at mid-point on his breast.