O how I shook myself, poor wight undone,

When he laid hold on me, and cried, 'Ye thought Perchance, I could in logic be outrun.'

To Minos then he took me, Minos brought

His tail eight times about his back severe, And bit it speaking, as by rage distraught, 'A culprit for the filching fire is here.'

Thence am I lost, and walk in such attire,

125

Rankling my heart, as I to thee appear."

Thus having ended all his words, the fire

130

Departed, with an action dolorous,

Tossing and flickering his pointed spire.
My guide and I went on (and left him thus)
Along the rock, till we the bridge had gained
That vaults the moat, where those iniquitous
Who trouble get, by making strife, are pained,

135

CANTO XXVIII.

O WHO could, but with words unmeasured, state
Completely all the wounds and all the blood

I now beheld, though oft he should relate

Some portion; sure each tongue would be subdued
By reason of our language and our brain,
That lack the skill to grasp such magnitude.

If there assembled all the hosts again

That ever on the many-fortuned soil

5

Of broad Apulia poured their blood with pain

10

On Roman edges, or in that long broil

That made of rings, as Livy's volume shows, And erreth not, so ponderous a spoil;

And all the crowds that tasted harmful blows

For facing Robert Guiscard; and all they

Of whom yet Ceperâno's clods expose

15

The bones, where each Apulian showed foul play;
And those of Tagliacozzo, where to him
That armed not, old Alardo, fell the day;
And one his lopt, and one his transfixt limb
Should lift, yet never so could they present
A model of the ninth pit's fashion grim.

No tun, whence cant or middle-board is rent,

Is pervious like as one I found among

This troop, down-cleft from chin to foul wind's vent. His bowels with his legs entangled hung,

25

His liver and the dismal pouch lay bare,

That turns what passes down the gorge to dung.
And whilst mine eyes upon him fastened were,

He saw and shouted, while his breast he set
With both hands open, "See me, how I tear!
See how dismembered goeth Mahomet!

See Ali at my front, cleft through the face, From chin to forelock, walketh weeping yet.

And all the rest thou seest in this place

30

Are others, that offence and schism have sowed 35

In life, and thence are cleft in even case.

A fiend is yonder, in such cruel mode

Who splitteth us, repassing all the train, When we remeasured have the dolorous road, On the sword's edge, for all the wounds again Are closed, ere we before him re-appear. But who art thou that musing dost remain Upon the rock, and haply out of fear,

Desiring still to keep the pangs at bay

That are decreed for thy indictments here?
"Nor has death reached him, nor doth sin convey
To torment," said my master, "but that he
May full experience reap, on this our way,

I, that am dead, must his conductor be,

40

45

And lead him down hell thus from grade to grade;

And that is true, as now I speak to thee.”

51

Then saw I full a hundred ghosts that stayed

Within the moat, on me to fix their eyes,

By wonder to forget their torment made, "O do to friar Dulcinus then advise,

Thou that belike wilt shortly see the sun,

Unless to join me quickly here he tries,

55

To make good store of food, which left undone

May bring the Novarese, through stress of snow,

A triumph else not lightly to be won."

Such words as these, with one foot poised to go,

Mohammed spoke to me, then pointed it

Upon the ground and from us parted so.

60

Another then, that had his gullet slit,

And nose from underneath his eyelids lopt,

65

Nor had he but one ear, amidst the fit

Of wonder like the others having stopt

To view me, first of them his mouth outspread, That with vermilion all its corners dropt.

"O thou, whom guilt condemneth not," he said, "And whom in Latin land, methinks, I knew, If I'm by too much likeness not misled, Remember Pier da Medicina too,

If ever thou return to that sweet plain That from Vercelli slants to Marcabou : And tell to Fâno's best-deserving twain, To Master Guido, and to Angiolell, That if prevision here be not in vain,