Dante's Hell Translation Canto X
Now is going on through a secret way
Between the martyrdoms and the ground wall,
My master, and I behind him to stay.
“Oh highest virtue, who me gently haul
In wicked rounds”, I started, “If you please,
Speak to me, and to my requests befall.
The persons who are in graves abductees
Might perhaps be seen? Because opened are
All covers, and too nobody guards these”
And he to me: “All will be closed by far
When from Iosafat they will come back
With their bodies which just there up left were.
The graveyard on this side happens to stack
Epicurus and followers them all,
Who make souls of dead corps follow the track.
But to the question you put with your call
An answer will be given in time short,
And also to untold wish you enthrall.
And I: “Good duke, I just do not comport
To hide my heart if not to speak at less,
As you have always tried to me exhort”.
“Oh Tuscan going in the fire stress
Alive speaking in such an honest way,
Please stay more in this site and don’t egress.
Your way of speaking is a clear display
Of your indeed noble homeland birth place,
To which I was nagging perhaps it may”.
Suddenly this loud sound came out to face
From one of the graves; so I went then close,
Fearing, to duke my guide a little space.
And he: “What are you doing? Don’t oppose!
Now you see Farinata who stood up:
From the waist up you can see he arose”.
Yet I had turned my face his sight to clasp
And he with waist and forehead then stood
Looking as had hell in great spite to grasp.
And the lively hands of duke promptly could
Push me between the graves then towards him,
Telling: “Your words be well weighed should”.
After I reached of his grave the rim
He looked at me, and then, scornful just a bit,
He asked: “Which is your original limb?”.
Since I was akin to his will admit,
I did not hide it, opening at all;
So he then scowled up the eyebrows well split;
Then told: “Were fierce rivals, as I recall,
To me and parents and my partners too,
So that twice I could dispel them and maul.”
“If they were expelled, they came back, is true”,
I answered him, “And both the times indeed;
But yours this art were not able to view”
Then rose uncovered to my sight concede
A shadow, along this, up to chin:
I think to rise on knees it could succeed.
It looked then me around as it had been
Anxious to see if any else was there;
And then after the suspect became thin,
Weeping told: “If you now in this despair
Prison are moving thanks to your brain height,
Where is my son? why with you doesn’t fare?”
And I to him: “Lone I don’t reach this site:
The one who waits me there, and is my guide
Maybe your Guido did not like his sleight”.
His words and the way too with which he cried
Already to know his name could allow ;
Thus my answer was so quickly implied.
Immediately pricked up he screamed: “How?”
You told:”he did not”? Does he not live yet?
Does not then lance his eyes the sweet light now?”.
When he realized that he did not met
Any word responding to his reply,
Supine fell and to show he did not let.
But the other noble, the reason why
I stopped there before, did not change face,
Neither moved his neck, nor bent his side by;
And replied keeping the previous trace,
“If they have that art”, told, ”so poorly got,
It gives me sorrow more than this bed place.
But less than fifty times of light will spot
The woman’s face which always commands here,
That you will know that art how weighs a lot.
And if your return to sweet world is clear,
Tell me: why that people is godless so
Against my guys in all laws to appear?”
So I to him: “The torment and ruin flow
Which the Arbia river colored red,
This speech in our temple makes then so low”.
After he sighing had shaken his head,
“I was not alone”, told, “And nor for sure
With no reason I moved with others then.
But I was alone, when hard to insure
For each one the city of Florence save,
Who just defended it with open cure”.
“I pray, hoping your seed rests in this grave”,
I begged him, “You should now untie the knot
Which until now has knotted my speech wave.
It looks like you see, if rightly I caught,
In advance what in the future will be,
While in the present to see you cannot”
“Like that one who has wicked light, we see
Future events”, he told, “which are still far;
This much our high lord to shine is yet free.
When things are closer or happen, vain are
Our arguments; and if no one gives news,
To know your human status is not our.
So you can realize how we must lose
Any understanding from that point on
Which of the future the door must then close”.
Then, as by a sense of be faulty won,
Told: “Now to that fallen soul you shall tell
That his son away from life has not gone;
And if, before, I was not to retell,
Let him know I did it because I thought
In the wrong way, you after have cleared well”.
And my master already for me sought;
So that I begged the spirit onwards more
To tell me who to stay with him was brought.
Told me: “Here with more than thousand lay sore:
The second Federico is now here
And the Cardinal; others I ignore”.
Then he hid himself; and I walked near
The ancient poet, back thinking in the while
To those words which hostile might me appear.
He started to walk; and then moving so,
He told me: “Why are you so harshly lost?”.
And I satisfied his question aglow.
“Your mind has to remind at any cost
What heard against you, that wise could say;
“And now look here”, and up his finger tossed:
“When you shall be in front of the sweet ray
Of woman whose nice eye can just all trace,
From her you shall know of your life the way”.
He then after moved toward left his pace:
We left the wall and went the middle through
Making a path cutting a valley place,
Which up to there his disgusting stench spew.
Copyright © Mario De Paz | Year Posted 2014
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