Therein they have to rue the fraudful plan Of the great horse, that made the fountain head Therein they rue the art, through which the dead And the Palladium there is visited Upon them." "If, O master, in those flames, If they can speak, I pray thee and repray," Said I, "and count I make a thousand claims, That thou wilt not refuse to me to stay 60 65 So long as till the forked flame draws nigh; That thy own tongue should lay its office by, 71 I understand, because thou mayst displease Those Greeks, perchance, by terms less eloquent." 75 Then as the flame came forward by degrees To where my guide found place and season due, I heard him giving form to sounds like these. “O ye that in the single flame are two, If I have merited, when life was mine, If more or less I merited from you, When in the world I penned the high-proud line, Stir not, but speak that one whom I require, Began to flicker, with a murmuring As if it were the tongue he spoke withal, No aged father's wretchedness, nor dear Child's aspect, nor the love so nobly earned, That should have made Penelope's glad cheer, Could the great passion quell with which I burned, To get me knowledge of the globe, and be One that the vice and worth of man had learned. 95 And forth upon the deep and unshut sea 100 I launched me with one boat, and that small train Of comrades that had not forsaken me. I saw this coast and that as far as Spain, And as the Sardians' island, and the rest Which that sea washes, and the Moors' domain. 105 And I and all my crew were age-opprest And stiffened, when we reached that narrow strait, And passing now Seville upon the right, That we inherit still, ere life is done, Be loth to abdicate the experience Of yon unpeopled world behind the sun; Ye spring, to live not like the beasts, but strain After all knowledge and all excellence.' 110 115 120 And by this little speech I made so fain My comrades for the voyage, that back to warn Them afterwards I might have sought in vain. And having turned our poop against the morn, We made our sails wings for the mad emprize, 125 And further ever toward the left were borne. And now night looked on us with all the eyes 130 135 We joyed, and soon it gave us cause to rue, When rose a whirlwind from that coast new-found That on the vessel's foremost corner flew, And thrice, with all his waters, whirled us round 140 Till up our poop was lifted at the will Of whom I name not, and our bows were drowned; Then the shut waves above my head were still." CANTO XXVII. Now was already stilled, and upward spired, At To speak no more, that flame, and from our view, my lief poet's licence, now retired. When following after him, another drew Our eyes upon the summit of his cone By a confused sound which thence it threw. As the Sicilian bull-that by the moan Of that man bellowed first, and this was right, Who had attempered with his file the tone Roared by the voice of the tormented wight, So that by anguish it alone seemed rent (All copper as it was), and ransackt quite, So here, obtaining neither path nor vent In what they issued from, those words of woe Assumed the language of their element. 5 10 15 |