So through the dense and tawny twilight sped,

As close and closer to the brink I wound,

Fled error from me, and possest me dread.
For like as Montereggion is around

The embrasure of its walls with towers bedight,

So all the marge, whereby this gulf was bound,

The Giants horrible with half their height

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Entowered, whom Jove yet threatens from his place

In heaven, whenas he thunders in his might.

And now of one of them I saw the face,

Shoulders, and breast, and belly some good part, And each arm hanging by its flank could trace. Nature did well for sure to drop the art

Of moulding animals on such a scale, That agents were to Mars's very heart; And if she still of elephant and whale

Repent not, he, that scans it close, shall find Her justice and discretion here prevail;

For, when the disquisition of the mind

To power and evil will shall add its weight, What succor then remaineth for mankind?

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His face appeared to be as broad and great,

As of St. Peter's is the pine at Rome,
And every bone beyond proportionate;
Whereby the bank, which made his perizome

Down from the waist, left so much of him bare,
That to the scalp three Frisians to have clombe
Might all in vain have boasted; for I there
Beheld as much at least as thirty palm,
To where we clasp our mantles counted fair.
"Raufell maunee aumeck zaubee aulm,"

Began that mouth of surquedry to bawl, Which seemed unsuited for a softer psalm. "Besotted soul," I heard my master call,

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Keep to thy horn, and vent thyself thereby,
When rage or other passions on thee fall.

Search on thy neck, and thou shalt find full nigh
The belt that holds it bound, O ghost bemused,
Which hooping thy huge bosom thou wilt spy."
Then added, "By himself he stands accused;
Behold that Nimrod, from whose evil thought
One language through the world no more is used.

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Come leave him here, nor spend we breath for nought,

For so to him sounds every other speech, As his to others, which to none is taught."

Now turning towards the left, along the beach

We journeyed forth, and far more dread and vast We found the next, within a cross-bow's reach. What master-smith his girdle might have cast, I wot not, but his arms in sooth were bound, The right before, the left behind him fast, Within a chain, that all his bulk enwound

Below the waist, so that I could discern

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Full five gyrations of it from the ground.

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"This overweening one desired to learn

His power by proof against supremest Jove; That makes him," said my guide, "this 'vantage earn. Lo Ephialtes! when the Giants drove

The gods to quake," he wrought full many a feat; The arms shall stir no more with which he strove."

"Oh, if 'tis possible, I could entreat,"

Said I, "that measureless Briareus

The inquisition of mine eyes may meet."

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"Thou shalt Antæus find," he answered thus,

"Not far from hence, who speaketh and is free,
And who to neathmost Ill shall forward us.
Far yonder stands the Giant thou wouldst see,
And he is bound, and were he not in mien
More furious, would to this one well agree."
No stalwart earthquake ever yet has been,
That shook the root of any tower so sore,

As Ephialtes then to shake was seen.
Then feared I death as never heretofore,

And had I not beheld his bonds, there would,
Beyond my fear, have needed nothing more.
So quitting him, our journey we pursued,

And to Antæus came, who full five ell,

Forby his head, above the embrasure stood.

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"O thou that in the fortune-turning dell,

Which Scipio made an heiress of renown,
When with his hosts fled Hannibal pellmell,
Didst bring for spoil a thousand lions down;
And hadst thou succored at the high-proud fray
Thy brethren, still it seems believed the crown

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Of conquest with the sons of earth might stay;
O take it not in scorn, but forward us
Where frost enclamps Cocytus. Do not say
That we should Typhon seek, or Tityus,

This man can give thee what is here desired;
So stoop, and never curl thy nostril thus ;
By fame on earth thy service shall be hired,

For still he lives, and long may life retain,

If not unripe he be by grace required."

So spake my master, whereat he amain

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Spread out his hands, and took in them my guide, Those hands that so could Hercules constrain.

Virgil, thus graspt when he himself espied,

"Come nigh, that I may take thee," gave command;

Then made one load of him and me beside.

As shows the Carisenda, when you stand

Beneath its beetling, if a cloud come by

That meets it, leaning toward the adverse hand;
So seemed Antæus, while I strained mine eye

To see him stooping, and some other way

At such an hour, I had been fain to try;

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