He fled away now all his words were done,
And I a Centaur saw with wrath embued

Come crying,
Maremma rears not such a multitude

"Where is this embittered one?"

Of snakes as he along his withers bore,

To where the manly semblance was endued.

A dragon stood behind his nape, which o'er
His shoulders either way its wings outspread,
And the same scorches all it comes before.
"That shape is Cacus," my good master said,

"Who, dwelling in the rock of Aventine,
Made oftentimes a lake of sanguine red.
He with his brethren wends not in a line

To quite the fraudful theft that he achieved,

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From the great herd, that near him browsed, of kine. Whence of his crooked life he was bereaved

By Hercules's mace, which gave well nigh A hundred blows, and he not ten perceived." As he was speaking, both that shape went by,

And underneath us came three spirits new,

Of whom my guide was not aware, nor I,

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Except upon their calling, "What are you?"
Whereat our dialogue was laid aside,

And all attention on themselves they drew.
I knew them not, but as it may betide,

Oft by some chance or circumstance, one shade
Had need to name another, when he cried
To his companions, "Where has Chanfa stayed?"
At which my guide's attention to secure
My finger on my lips and chin I laid.

If, Reader, now thy faith should scarce endure
That which I write, it will be no surprise,
For I, who saw it, hardly judge it sure.
As still I gazed with open-lidded eyes,

Behold, where a six-footed serpent springs

In front of one, and limb on limb applies.
The middle feet about his chest it flings,

His arms it pinions with the foremost twain,
Then both his cheeks between its fangs it brings.
The hind legs pendant on his thighs remain,

And through their interval its tail was placed, And doubled-up behind his loins again.

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No tree the serried ivy has embraced

So tightly ever, as this reptile grim
The alien members with its own enlaced.
They welded afterwards, as though each limb
Were melted wax, and all their color blent,
Nor what had been appeared in it nor him ;
As through the paper held above is sent

By the flame gradually a browner hue,
Which is not blackness, and the white is spent ;

The others who were standing still to view, Cried out, "O how thou changest, Angelo! thou art not either one or two."

See now,

Already did both heads together grow,

And in a single aspect we descried

Two figures merged, and two disfeatured so:

Two arms the fourfold levers had supplied,

The legs and arms, the double womb and chest,

Became such parts as never man espied.

No pristine semblance there was manifest,

Biform and nulliform the kindless brute

Seemed, and away with limping paces prest.

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As under Dogdays' potent lash the newt,

From hedge to hedge when shifting, shall appear

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A lightning if across the path it shoot,

So seemed a fiery snake in its career,

As at the bellies of the two it sped,

All black and livid, like a mildewed ear.
It in the part by which man first is fed

Stung one of them, and straight upon the stroke

Fell back below him, on the ground outspread.
Thereon the stung man stared, but nothing spoke;
He staggered on his feet, that close were set,

Like one by slumbers or by fever broke.

The serpent him, he eyed the serpent yet,

One by the mouth, the other through the wound, Fumed violently, and the fumings met.

No more let Lucan now the story sound

Of miserable Nassidius or Sabellus,

But hark! for what a flight our wings are bound;

No more of Arethuse let Ovid tell us,

Or Cadmus, for if these to brook or snake

He turns by poet-craft, I am not jealous.

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For never did he yet two natures make

To change themselves by such a mutual act, That either's form should other's body take.

The twain reciprocated by this pact;

His tail into a fork the serpent split,

And the stung man his footmarks did contract.

His legs and thighs he did together fit

And solder so, there could not have been traced Within a while one vestige of the slit.

The figure, which beneath him was defaced,

Its cloven tail erected, and its skin
Grew soft, and him a harder rind embraced.

I saw the arms drawn by the armpits in,
And of the snake the two short feet had grown

As much in length as those had lost herein.

The middle feet about each other thrown,

Became the organ that's concealed by males,

The caitiff making two limbs of his own.

And thus while each of them the smoke yet veils

In foreign hues, and while the new skin grows On this side, as on yonder side it fails,

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