Dante's Hell Translation Canto Xxxiv Part1
This is the final CANTO of Hell. I am going to publish the full translation as epub on AMAZON. It was a very hard work to find rhymes in english.
“Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni now
Toward us; so you watch forward with care”,
My master told, “if you can then endow”.
As when a thick fog makes hazy the air,
Or when our hemisphere is getting night,
Appears far a mill which wind just moves there,
A such building looked to my forward sight ;
Then due to wind I shrank well in the back
Of my duke, since no else shelter find might.
Yet I was, and with fear these rhymes I stack,
There where all shadows in full covered were,
And thus transpired as in glass a mote black.
Some laying down; some standing up incur,
One with its head up and one with its feet;
Others, as a bow, face to feet transfer.
When we had yet walked much in the street,
The master of mine then pleased to show me
The being who was of beauty replete,
Moved out of fore hand and told to rest be,
“Here is Dis”, he told, ”and here is the place
Where you must have much fortitude in thee”.
As I was weak and frosty as glace,
Don’t ask me, reader, since I write cannot,
Because by any word I would debase.
I did not die and also survived not;
Think now within you, if enough have mind,
How I became, of both deprived had got.
The emperor of reign of mournful kind,
With his half breast came out of frosted lake;
And more than any giant you can find,
Because giants even its arms cannot make:
Look you then now how it all might big be
So as to conform that space he could take.
If he handsome was as now ugly is he,
And against his factor his lashes rose,
Any mourning from him then must come free.
Oh such a wonderment in me arose
When I saw three faces be on his head!
One was before, and it red color shows;
The others two, which only might embed
On that at middle of each shoulder side,
And both reached on top to join the crest bed:
On the right one yellow and white looked vied;
The left one was so exactly to see
As the ones are where Nile’s waters reside.
Under each one two big wings had there he,
As much as was convenient to such bird:
I didn't see similar sails on sea.
No pens they had, of bat instead stirred
Was their fashion; and also he moved those,
So that three winds from him were then conferred:
And thus Cocytus was completely froze.
With six eyes cried, and from three chins too
Tears dripped and bloody slime could depose.
With each mouth he was breaking with teeth through
A sinner, of a grinder in the guise,
So three mournful together he could chew.
To the one forward no bite pain could rise
Compared to scratching, which on his poor back
Produced to skin wounded and injured plies.
“That soul up there who suffers the worst rack”,
Master told, “Judas Iscariot is,
Whose head is in, and his legs can out jack.
Of other two whose head down collapses,
Is Brutus the one pending from black mug:
You see how now he squirms and no word has!;
And other Cassius muscled who must chug.
But night is now coming, and at this time
We must go, we have to see no more bug”.
Copyright © Mario De Paz | Year Posted 2015
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