Exploring The Waste Land - Show supplementary textInferno
Canto V
Dante Alighieri
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poetic translation
- Thus I descended out of the first circle
- Down to the second, that less space begirds,
- And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.
- There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;
- Examines the transgressions at the entrance;
- Judges, and sends according as he girds him.
- I say, that when the spirit evil-born
- Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;
- And this discriminator of transgressions
- Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;
- Girds himself with his tail as many times
- As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.
- Always before him many of them stand;
- They go by turns each one unto the judgment;
- They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.
- "O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry
- Comest," said Minos to me, when he saw me,
- Leaving the practice of so great an office,
- "Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;
- Let not the portal's amplitude deceive thee."
- And unto him my Guide: "Why criest thou too?
- Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;
- It is so willed there where is power to do
- That which is willed; and ask no further question."
- And now begin the dolesome notes to grow
- Audible unto me; now am I come
- There where much lamentation strikes upon me.
- I came into a place mute of all light,
- Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,
- If by opposing winds 't is combated.
- The infernal hurricane that never rests
- Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
- Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.
- When they arrive before the precipice,
- There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,
- There they blaspheme the puissance divine.
- I understood that unto such a torment
- The carnal malefactors were condemned,
- Who reason subjugate to appetite.
- And as the wings of starlings bear them on
- In the cold season in large band and full,
- So doth that blast the spirits maledict;
- It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;
- No hope doth comfort them for evermore,
- Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.
- And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,
- Making in air a long line of themselves,
- So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,
- Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.
- Whereupon said I: "Master, who are those
- People, whom the black air so castigates?"
- "The first of those, of whom intelligence
- Thou fain wouldst have," then said he unto me,
- "The empress was of many languages.
- To sensual vices she was so abandoned,
- That lustful she made licit in her law,
- To remove the blame to which she had been led.
- She is Semiramis, of whom we read
- That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;
- She held the land which now the Sultan rules.
- The next is she who killed herself for love,
- And broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus;
- Then Cleopatra the voluptuous."
- Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless
- Seasons revolved; and saw the great Achilles,
- Who at the last hour combated with Love.
- Paris I saw, Tristan; and more than a thousand
- Shades did he name and point out with his finger,
- Whom Love had separated from our life.
- After that I had listened to my Teacher,
- Naming the dames of eld and cavaliers,
- Pity prevailed, and I was nigh bewildered.
- And I began: "O Poet, willingly
- Speak would I to those two, who go together,
- And seem upon the wind to be so light."
- And, he to me: "Thou'lt mark, when they shall be
- Nearer to us; and then do thou implore them
- By love which leadeth them, and they will come."
- Soon as the wind in our direction sways them,
- My voice uplift I: "O ye weary souls!
- Come speak to us, if no one interdicts it."
- As turtle-doves, called onward by desire,
- With open and steady wings to the sweet nest
- Fly through the air by their volition borne,
- So came they from the band where Dido is,
- Approaching us athwart the air malign,
- So strong was the affectionate appeal.
- "O living creature gracious and benignant,
- Who visiting goest through the purple air
- Us, who have stained the world incarnadine,
- If were the King of the Universe our friend,
- We would pray unto him to give thee peace,
- Since thou hast pity on our woe perverse.
- Of what it pleases thee to hear and speak,
- That will we hear, and we will speak to you,
- While silent is the wind, as it is now.
- Sitteth the city, wherein I was born,
- Upon the sea-shore where the Po descends
- To rest in peace with all his retinue.
- Love, that on gentle heart doth swiftly seize,
- Seized this man for the person beautiful
- That was ta'en from me, and still the mode offends me.
- Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,
- Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,
- That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;
- Love has conducted us unto one death;
- Caina waiteth him who quenched our life!"
- These words were borne along from them to us.
- As soon as I had heard those souls tormented,
- I bowed my face, and so long held it down
- Until the Poet said to me: "What thinkest?"
- When I made answer, I began: "Alas!
- How many pleasant thoughts, how much desire,
- Conducted these unto the dolorous pass!"
- Then unto them I turned me, and I spake,
- And I began: "Thine agonies, Francesca,
- Sad and compassionate to weeping make me.
- But tell me, at the time of those sweet sighs,
- By what and in what manner Love conceded,
- That you should know your dubious desires?"
- And she to me: "There is no greater sorrow
- Than to be mindful of the happy time
- In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.
- But, if to recognise the earliest root
- Of love in us thou hast so great desire,
- I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.
- One day we reading were for our delight
- Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.
- Alone we were and without any fear.
- Full many a time our eyes together drew
- That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;
- But one point only was it that o'ercame us.
- When as we read of the much-longed-for smile
- Being by such a noble lover kissed,
- This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided,
- Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.
- Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.
- That day no farther did we read therein."
- And all the while one spirit uttered this,
- The other one did weep so, that, for pity,
- I swooned away as if I had been dying,
- And fell, even as a dead body falls.
Exploring The Waste Land
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File date: Sunday, September 29, 2002