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Dante's Hell Translation Canto Xxxiv Part2

(continues after part1)

When he agreed, his neck I held and climb;
And he waited for proper time and place,
And when the wings were open at the prime,

He clutched the hairy ribs with strong embrace;
From fleece to fleece he rapid went then down
Betwixt the hair thick and frosted skin space.

When we then reached where the haunch just around
Turns, at the point where the hips largest are,
The duke, with effort and also fear frown,

Turned his head towards paws of that one were,
And grabbed the hair as now he had to climb,
So that I thought we went back to hell there.

“Hold me quite well, because on such stairs grime”,
Told my master, panting as a tired man,
“At best we leave such evil in short time”.

After he went out through a stone hole span
And put me on its border just to sit;
And after showed me the way trough we ran.

I rose my eyes and I believed was it
Lucifer such as I had before left,
And then I saw him his legs up to fit;

And if I then became of mind bereft,
Vulgar people might think,  but cannot see
The extent of point I passed through the cleft.

“Get up”, told my master, ”on feet of thee:
Long is the way to go and evil too,
And already sun rose to half third be”.

It was not like a mansion floor to do
The way we had, but natural topsoil
Which was quite awkward with just no light through.

“Before from this abyss I me uncoil,
Master of mine”, I told when I up stood,
“Tell me to explain where I my thought soil:

Where is the frost? And how this one stay could
So upside down? And how in time so short,
From night to morning sun its path do should?”

And he to me: “You in your mind support
To be beyond the center,  where I kept
The hair of dirty worm of world bad sort.

You there were as much as I had down leaped;
When I turned myself, you passed the point through
To that all weights from any part are trapped.

And now below the hemisphere are you
Opposed to that which the great dry land
Covers, and under whose top worn out too

Was the man born and lived with no fault planned;
You have your feet on quite a little sphere
Which is of Giudecca the mirror band.

Here it is day , when there it’s night unclear;
And this one, who gives us stairs just with hair,
Is still threaded as he was before here.

On this side he fell down from sky through air;
And earth, which on this side had appeared first
Him fearing veil with sea made with despair,

And came to our hemisphere; maybe worst
To escape him it left this hollow site
The one appearing here, and up cursed”.

Place is there just quite far from Belzebù’s bite
As much as it extends the length of grave,
Which not because of view, but for sound quite

Is known for a trickle which there makes wave
Through a stone hole, which it eroded much,
With flow which it enfolds, not much concave.

My duke and I on that way hidden such
Entered then in the vivid world just back
With no care of rest getting in touch,

We climbed up, he as first, I on his track,
Enough to my eyes just nice things to show
Carried on the sky, through an hole not black.

And going we saw again the stars so.

(Translation is finished here)

Copyright © Mario De Paz | Year Posted 2015

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