Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit

That he would tell me who was with him there. He said: "With more than a thousand here I lie; Within here is the second Frederick,

And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not." Thereon he hid himself; and I towards

The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me. He moved along; and afterward, thus going,

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He said to me, “Why art thou so bewildered?" And I in his inquiry satisfied him. "Let memory preserve what thou hast heard Against thyself," that Sage commanded me, "And now attend here"; and he raised his fin

ger.

"When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet 130 Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold, From her thou 'lt know the journey of thy life.” Unto the left hand then he turned his feet;

We left the wall, and went towards the middle, Along a path that strikes into a valley, Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.

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CANTO XI.

Upon the margin of a lofty bank

Which great rocks broken in a circle made, We came upon a still more cruel throng; And there, by reason of the horrible

Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out, We drew ourselves aside behind the cover Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing, Which said: "Pope Anastasius I hold,

Whom out of the right way Photinus drew." "Slow it behoveth our descent to be,

So that the sense be first a little used

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To the sad blast, and then we shall not heed it." The Master thus ; and unto him I said,

"Some compensation find, that the time pass not Idly"; and he: "Thou seest I think of that. 15 My son, upon the inside of these rocks,"

Began he then to say, " are three small circles, From grade to grade, like those which thou art leaving.

They all are full of spirits maledict;

But that hereafter sight alone suffice thee, Hear how and wherefore they are in constraint. Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven, Injury is the end ; and all such end Either by force or fraud afflicteth others. But because fraud is man's peculiar vice, More it displeaseth God; and so stand lowest The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them. All the first circle of the Violent is;

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But since force may be used against three persons, In three rounds 't is divided and constructed. 30 To God, to ourselves, and to our neighbor can we Use force; I say on them and on their things, As thou shalt hear with reason manifest. A death by violence, and painful wounds, Are to our neighbor given; and in his substance Ruin, and arson, and injurious levies; Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly, Marauders, and freebooters, the first round Tormenteth all in diverse companies.

Line 39. Tormenteth all in companies diverse.

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Man may lay violent hands upon himself,

And his own goods; and therefore in the second Round must perforce without avail repent Whoever of your world deprives himself, Who games, and dissipates his property,

And weepeth there, where he should jocund be. Violence can be done the Deity,.

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In heart denying and blaspheming Him, And by disdaining Nature and her bounty. And for this reason doth the smallest round Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors, And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart. Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung,

A man may practise upon him who trusts, And him who doth no confidence imburse. This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers

Only the bond of love which Nature makes; Wherefore within the second circle nestle Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic, Falsification, theft, and simony,

Panders, and barrators, and the like filth. By the other mode, forgotten is that love

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Which Nature makes, and what is after added, From which there is a special faith engendered. Hence in the smallest circle, where the point is

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Of the Universe, upon which Dis is seated, Whoe'er betrays forever is consumed." And I: "My Master, clear enough proceeds Thy reasoning, and full well distinguishes This cavern and the people who possess it. But tell me, those within the fat lagoon, Whom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth

beat,

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And who encounter with such bitter tongues, Wherefore are they inside of the red city

Not punished, if God has them in his wrath, And if he has not, wherefore in such fashion?" And unto me he said: "Why wanders so

Thine intellect from that which it is wont?

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Or, sooth, thy mind where is it elsewhere looking? Hast thou no recollection of those words

With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses 80 The dispositions three, that Heaven abides not, — Incontinence, and Malice, and insane

Bestiality? and how Incontinence

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Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts? If thou regardest this conclusion well, And to thy mind recallest who they are That up outside are undergoing penance, Clearly wilt thou perceive why from these felons They separated are, and why less wroth Justice divine doth smite them with its hammer." "O Sun, that healest all distempered vision,

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Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest, That doubting pleases me no less than knowing! Once more a little backward turn thee," said I, "There where thou sayest that usury offends

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Goodness divine, and disengage the knot."
Philosophy," he said, "to him who heeds it,
Noteth, not only in one place alone,

After what manner Nature takes her course
From Intellect Divine, and from its art;

And if thy Physics carefully thou notest, After not many pages shalt thou find, That this your art as far as possible

Follows, as the disciple doth the master;

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So that your art is, as it were, God's grandchild. From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind

Genesis at the beginning, it behoves Mankind to gain their life and to advance ; And since the usurer takes another way,

Nature herself and in her follower

Disdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope.
But follow, now, as I would fain go on,
For quivering are the Fishes on the horizon,
And the Wain wholly over Caurus lies,
And far beyond there we descend the crag."

CANTO XII.

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The place where to descend the bank we came
Was alpine, and from what was there, moreover,
Of such a kind that every eye would shun it.
Such as that ruin is which in the flank

Smote, on this side of Trent, the Adige,
Either by earthquake or by failing stay,

For from the mountain's top, from which it moved,
Unto the plain the cliff is shattered so,

No path 't would give to him who was above;

Even such was the descent of that ravine,

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And on the border of the broken chasm

The infamy of Crete was stretched along,

Who was conceived in the fictitious cow;

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And when he us beheld, he bit himself, Even as one whom anger racks within. My Sage towards him shouted: "Peradventure Thou think'st that here may be the Duke of

Athens,

Who in the world above brought death to thee?