Thus talked we, till we had arrived the place
That from the rock shows first another glen,
If light sufficed, as far as to its base.

On Evilpits' extremest cloister when

I mounted, and its novices were made To come within the limits of our ken, Forthwith a battery upon me played,

40

Whose shafts were barbed with ruth, from diverse

wails,

At which

my hands upon both ears I laid. As if all pains from lazars in the dales

Of Chiâna, 'twixt September and July, With all Maremman, all Sardinian ails, Together in a moat should be thrown by,

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Such woe was here, and such a stench derived, 50 As uses from the limbs that putrefy.

Descending, on the last mound we arrived

Of that long spur, and toward the left, not less Than elsewhere, turned; now was my sight enlived To reach that bottom, where the executress,

(Unerring Justice,) of the liege supreme,

The numbered counterfeiters punishes.

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No dismaller to look on was, I deem,

The Aiginetan people all infirm, Whenas the air did so with malice teem,

That the animals, unto the smallest worm,

Fell dead, and after were the nations old Restored, as poets of a truth affirm,

From seed of ants, than I could now behold

The spirits, all along that valley gray,
To languish in their clusters manifold.
One on the back, one on the belly lay
Of his companion, others shifted place
Crawling along their pitiable way.
We plodded on in silence, pace by pace,

With eye and ear on the diseas'd intent,

Who up to lift themselves were out of case.
I saw two sit, upon each other leant,

As men to warm them oft set plate on plate,
From head adown to foot with scalls besprent.

And never boy, for whom the squire must wait,
Plies currycomb so fast, nor groom at night
Who grudges to prolong his watch so late,

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As each of these led o'er his flesh the bite
Of his nails oft, and could no succors find
But this against his itch's great despite.
And so the nails drew down the scabby rind,
As 'twere a knife, that scrapes off every scale

Of bream, or what fish has a coarser kind.

O thou that with thy fingers dost dismail
Thyself," began my master unto one,
And whom as pincers often they avail;
Tell me, if Latin spirit there be none

Among those here; so may thy nail keep hard
For that which must eternally be done?"
We both are Latin, whom you see so marred,"
Said weeping one, "but of thyself now tell,
Vhat art thou that hast hereto such regard?"
I am one who descend from fell to fell

Before this living man," my guide thus spoke, And am resolved and mean to show him hell." .t this the mutual upholding broke,

And trembling turnèd each one round on me, With all who caught the sound's reflected stroke,

Then full upon me bending did I see

My gracious master, saying, "Ask thy will;" And I began, on finding him agree : "So may your memories, unstolen still,

In the foreworld out of the mind of man Stand, while the sun shall many periods fill; Tell me what men you are, and of what cian?

Let not your hideous and heart-sickening woe Fright you from showing all." Then one began : "I was an Aretine, and Albero

Of Siena got me burnt by his request;
But what I died for brings me not so low.
"Tis true I told him, speaking but in jest,'
That I a journey through the air could take;
And he, being more of whim than wit possest,
Required the proof, and for I could not make

A Dædalus of him, he got me then
Doomed by his blest begetter to the stake.
But for the alchemy I wrought with men

I am by Minos damned, whom no endeavor

Deludes, into the last pit of the ten."

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105

110

115

120

"Now," said I to the poet,

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was there ever

A giddy nation, like the Sienese?

Certes, the very French have been so never."
The other leper, hearing words like these,

Replied to my description: "Only leave
Lo Stricca out, who knew such thrift, and please
To leave out Nicholas, who did conceive

Those costly fires, that with the cloves are lit,
Amidst that garden where such seed yet cleaves.
The club too, that helpt Catcha to get quit

Of all his vasty foliage and his vines,

And where the giddy man put forth his wit.
And to acquaint thee better, who combines

With thee to rail upon Sienna so,

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130

Look on my face with narrowed lid for signs

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That speak the spirit of Capocchio,

Who metals falsified by alchemy,

And thou wilt, if I rightly scan thee, know
How good an ape of nature I could be."