I trow I pleased my master, he confest

In

every feature ever such content,

To hear the words I voiced from Truth's behest.
And therewith round me both his arms he bent,

And quite upon his breast when I was cast,
Remounted by the way of his descent;
Nor yet was wearied, clasping me so fast,

But thus unto the bridge's top he strode,
That from the fourth unto the fifth mole past;
And thereon laid he softly down his load,

Full soft above the untrimmed and craggy cope,

125

130

That would have made for goats an uncouth road;
Then did another vale before us ope.

CANTO XX.

Now to new pains must I accord my verses,

And matter for the twentieth canto strew
Of my first lay, which the submerged rehearses.
Already had I wholly fixed my view,

The depth of that uncovered gulf to sound,
That sheddings of distressful tears embrew.
Then saw I people through that valley round
Advance, in weeping silence, at the pace
That men chaunt litanies above the ground;
And lower down as I discerned the place,

They all appeared distorted wondrously Betwixt the chin and bosom; for the face Of each one from the reins was turned awry,

And backwards it behoved them to proceed; For none in front had power to cast his eye.

5

10

15

H

A man by force of palsy may indeed

Have so been wrung throughout against the grain, But I've not seen, nor is't within my creed,

O Reader, an' if God will have thee gain

Fruit from thy study, let thy own heart show

20

If dry-faced any more I could remain,
When near me I beheld our image so
Distorted, that their eyes the tears allow
Adown their backs into the cleft to flow.
I wept most surely, pressing with my brow
A crag, that from the rugged rock extends,
Till my guide said, "Like all the fools art thou!
Here liveth piety when pity ends;

Can any man be guilty more than he
Whose bias with the doom of God contends?
Lift up thy head, lift up thy head, and see

For whom the earth was opened, making call

6

The Thebans, Why dost from the battle flee,
O Amphiaraus? whither wilt thou fall?'

And shattering down he went without a stay
To Minos, who takes iron hold on all.

25

30

35

See him his shoulders for his breast display;
Because he wished to see too far before,
He now recoils, and makes a backward way.
See Tiresias, who altered shape of yore,

When he a female from a male became,

Exchanging all the limbs that erst he bore;
And needed with his wand to strike the same
Entwined serpents yet a second blow,

Ere he the down of manhood could reclaim.
See Aruns at his chest behind him go,

Who 'mid the Luni mountains, whereon moil
The Carrarese, that make their homes below,
Encaverned in the alabaster soil

His dwelling-place, whence of the ocean wide And of the stars nought could his prospect foil. And she, who veils her paps, though undescried

From this part, with her falling untrimmed hair, And carries all her down on yonder side,

Was Manto, who through many lands did fare,

Then came at last on that which gave me birth;

Of which now hear me for awhile declare.

55

As soon as from her father life went forth,
And as the city of Bacchus grew enthralled,
This damsel wandered long upon the earth.
A lake far up in fair Italia, called

Benâco, lies at foot of the Alp, whereby
The German frontier of Tyrol is walled.
From Garda to Camonica there fly

At least a thousand springs down Apennine, That lake's reposing waters to supply.

A place is there, upon the frontier-line,

At which the Bishop of Verona, Trent,

Or Brescia, should he pass, the cross might sign.
Peschiera, stout and goodly muniment,

Confronts the Brescians and the Bergamese,

Where greatest is the enclosing land's descent.
Down thither so much of the water flees

As from his lap Benâco needs must throw,

And turns a river 'twixt the verdant leas.

As soon then as the current 'gins to flow, "Tis not Benâco called, but Mincius,

Down to Governo, where it blends with Po.