Thereafter with his arms he clasped my neck; He kissed my face, and said: "Disdainful soul, Goodness is none, that decks his memory; And I: "My Master, much should I be pleased, And he to me: "Ere unto thee the shore Reveal itself, thou shalt be satisfied; Such a desire 't is meet thou shouldst enjoy." A little after that, I saw such havoc Made of him by the people of the mire, That still I praise and thank my God for it. They all were shouting, "At Philippo Argenti!” And that exasperate spirit Florentine Turned round upon himself with his own teeth. We left him there, and more of him I tell not; But on mine ears there smote a lamentation, 45 50 55 60 65 And the good Master said: "Even now, my son, Within there in the valley I discern They were." And he to me: "The fire eternal That kindles them within makes them look red, As thou beholdest in this nether Hell." Then we arrived within the moats profound, That circumvallate that disconsolate city; Not without making first a circuit wide, We came unto a place where loud the pilot More than a thousand at the gates I saw Out of the Heavens rained down, who angrily Were saying, "Who is this that without death Goes through the kingdom of the people dead?” And my sagacious Master made a sign A little then they quelled their great disdain, And said: "Come thou alone, and he begone 70 75 80 85 90 Let him return alone by his mad road; Try, if he can; for thou shalt here remain, Who hast escorted him through such dark regions." Think, Reader, if I was discomforted At utterance of the accursed words; For never to return here I believed. "O my dear Guide, who more than seven times 95 Hast rendered me security, and drawn me From imminent peril that before me stood, Do not desert me," said I, "thus undone; Said unto me: "Fear not; because our passage But here await me, and thy weary spirit Comfort and nourish with a better hope; For in this nether world I will not leave thee." So onward goes and there abandons me My Father sweet, and I remain in doubt, I could not hear what he proposed to them; But with them there he did not linger long, 100 105 110 They closed the portals, those our adversaries, On my Lord's breast, who had remained without Of all its boldness, and he said, with sighs, And unto me: "Thou, because I am angry, For once they used it at less secret gate, And now this side of it descends the steep, Passing across the circles without escort, One by whose means the city shall be opened." 115 120 125 130 CANTO IX. THAT hue which cowardice brought out on me, Because the eye could not conduct him far Through the black air, and through the heavy fog. "Still it behoveth us to win the fight," Began he; "Else... Such offered us herself... O how I long that some one here arrive!" Well I perceived, as soon as the beginning He covered up with what came afterward, That they were words quite different from the first; But none the less his saying gave me fear, Because I carried out the broken phrase, "Into this bottom of the doleful conch Doth any e'er descend from the first grade, 5 |