His hands extended and took up my Guide, Hands whose great pressure Hercules once felt. Virgilius, when he felt himself embraced,

Said unto me: "Draw nigh, that I may take thee";

Then of himself and me one bundle made. 135 As seems the Carisenda, to behold

Beneath the leaning side, when goes a cloud Above it so that opposite it hangs; Such did Antæus seem to me, who stood Watching to see him stoop, and then it was 140 I could have wished to go some other way. But lightly in the abyss, which swallows up Judas with Lucifer, he put us down;

Nor thus bowed downward made he there delay, But, as a mast doth in a ship, uprose.

145

CANTO XXXII.

If I had rhymes both rough and stridulous,
As were appropriate to the dismal hole
Down upon which thrust all the other rocks,
I would press out the juice of my conception
More fully; but because I have them not,
Not without fear I bring myself to speak;
For 't is no enterprise to take in jest,

To sketch the bottom of all the universe,
Nor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.
But may those Ladies help this verse of mine,

Who helped Amphion in enclosing Thebes, That from the fact the word be not diverse. O rabble ill-begotten above all,

Line 145. But, as a mast does in a ship, uprose.

5

10

Who 're in the place to speak of which is hard, 'T were better ye had here been sheep or goats! When we were down within the darksome well, 10 Beneath the giant's feet, but lower far,

And I was scanning still the lofty wall,
I heard it said to me: "Look how thou steppest!
Take heed thou do not trample with thy feet
The heads of the tired, miserable brothers!"
Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me
And underfoot a lake, that from the frost
The semblance had of glass, and not of water.
So thick a veil ne'er made upon its current

In winter-time Danube in Austria,
Nor there beneath the frigid sky the Don,
As there was here; so that if Tambernich
Had fallen upon it, or Pietrapana,

20

25

E'en at the edge 't would not have given a creak. And as to croak the frog doth place himself With muzzle out of water, when is dreaming

31

35

Of gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,— Livid, as far down as where shame appears, Were the disconsolate shades within the ice, Setting their teeth unto the note of storks. Each one his countenance held downward bent; From mouth the cold, from eyes the doleful heart Among them witness of itself procures. When round about me somewhat I had looked, 40 I downward turned me, and saw two so close, The hair upon their heads together mingled. "Ye who so strain your breasts together, tell me," I said, "who are you"; and they bent their necks,

And when to me their faces they had lifted,

45

Their eyes, which first were only moist within, Gushed o'er the eyelids, and the frost congealed The tears between, and locked them up again. Clamp never bound together wood with wood

So strongly; whereat they, like two he-goats, 50 Butted together, so much wrath o'ercame them. And one, who had by reason of the cold

Lost both his ears, still with his visage downward,

Said: "Why dost thou so mirror thyself in us? If thou desire to know who these two are,

The valley whence Bisenzio descends

Belonged to them and to their father Albert. They from one body came, and all Caina

55

Thou shalt search through, and shalt not find a shade

More worthy to be fixed in gelatine;

Not he in whom were broken breast and shadow At one and the same blow by Arthur's hand; Focaccia not; not he who me encumbers

So with his head I see no farther forward,

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65

And bore the name of Sassol Mascheroni;
Well knowest thou who he was, if thou art Tus-

can.

And that thou put me not to further speech,

Know that I Camicion de' Pazzi was,
And wait Carlino to exonerate me."

Then I beheld a thousand faces, made

70

Purple with cold; whence o'er me comes a shudder,

And evermore will come, at frozen ponds.

And while we were advancing tow'rds the middle, Where everything of weight unites together,

And I was shivering in the eternal shade, Whether 't were will, or destiny, or chance,

75

I know not; but in walking 'mong the heads I struck my foot hard in the face of one. Weeping he growled: "Why dost thou trample

me?

Unless thou comest to increase the vengeance 80

Of Montaperti, why dost thou molest me?" And I: "My Master, now wait here for me, That I through him may issue from a doubt; Then thou mayst hurry me, as thou shalt wish.” The Leader stopped; and to that one I said

85

Who was blaspheming vehemently still : "Who art thou, that thus reprehendest others?" "Now who art thou, that goest through Antenora

66

Smiting," replied he, "other people's cheeks, So that, if thou wert living, 't were too much?" 'Living I am, and dear to thee it may be,”

Was my response, "if thou demandest fame, That 'mid the other notes thy name I place." And he to me: "For the reverse I long;

91

Take thyself hence, and give me no more

trouble;

Nor ill thou knowest to flatter in this hollow." Then by the scalp behind I seized upon him,

95

And said: "It must needs be thou name thy. self,

Or not a hair remain upon thee here."

Whence he to me: "Though thou strip off my

hair,

I will not tell thee who I am, nor show thee,
If on my head a thousand times thou fall."
I had his hair in hand already twisted,

100

And more than one shock of it had pulled out, He barking, with his eyes held firmly down, 105 When cried another: "What doth ail thee, Bocca?

66

Is 't not enough to clatter with thy jaws,

But thou must bark? what devil touches thee? '

Now," said I, "I care not to have thee speak,
Accursed traitor; for unto thy shame

10

I will report of thee veracious news. "Begone," he answered, " and tell what thou wilt, But be not silent, if thou issue hence,

Of him who had just now his tongue so prompt; He weepeth here the silver of the French;

115

'I saw,' thus canst thou phrase it,' him of Duera
There where the sinners stand out in the cold.'
If thou shouldst questioned be who else was there,
Thou hast beside thee him of Beccaria,
Of whom the gorget Florence slit asunder;
Gianni del Soldanier, I think, may be

Yonder with Ganellon, and Tebaldello
Who oped Faenza when the people slept."

Already we had gone away from him,
When I beheld two frozen in one hole,
So that one head a hood was to the other;
And even as bread through hunger is devoured,
The uppermost on the other set his teeth,
There where the brain is to the nape united.

Not in another fashion Tydeus gnawed

The temples of Menalippus in disdain,

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125

130

Than that one did the skull and the other

things.

"O thou, who showest by such bestial sign

Thy hatred against him whom thou art eating,