Paused here awhile the poet, then went on,

"Now he is mute, let not the hour depart, But ask, if thou hast more that should be known.”

I answered, "Do thou ask, whate'er thou art

Most minded to believe would serve my need, For I could not, such pity throngs my heart." Thereon resumed he, "If the man, indeed,

Shall freely do as by thy speech enjoined,

O soul in thraldom, please thou, for his meed,
To tell us how the spirit is confined

Within these gnarls; and tell us further too,

If ever any shall such limbs unwind

Hereafter?" And the trunk then strongly blew,

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And words were fashioned from this wind; to wit,

'Briefly shall answer be return'd to you.

When the infuriated soul doth quit

That flesh, whence by herself she was pluckt out,

Minos awards her to the seventh pit.

She falls into the wood, nor goes about

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To choose a place, but where chance flings her she Drops, like á grain of spelt, and there doth sprout,

And grows a sapling, and a salvage tree;

Then feeding on her leaves, the Harpies make
Sorrow, and eke make sorrow's passage free.
We, like the rest, our mortal weeds shall take,
Not put them on, for that may not be had
Justly by men, which they themselves forsake;
But we along the melancholy glade

Shall drag them, and our bodies shall be hung
Each on the briar of its injurious shade."
As by the trunk attentively we clung,

Believing he would utter somewhat more,

An uproar suddenly about us rung,

As when a man perceives the chase and boar

To the place where he standeth making way, By the hounds' clamor and the branches' roar. Lo! from the coast, which on our left hand lay,

Two rent and naked souls so fiercely sped, That in the wood they shattered every spray: "Now hasten, hasten, Death," the foremost said

But he behind, who deemed himself too slow,

Cried, "Thy legs, Lâno, not so nimbly fled

Jousting at Toppo ;" and thereat, as though

His breath had failed, he suddenly fell sheer Upon a bush, and merged into it so.

I saw the wood all swarming in his rear

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With gaunt and greedy dogs, like greyhounds let Loose from the leash, and hotly pressing near; Their teeth upon the crouching ghost they set, And rent him, nor let shred with shred remain, Then bore away those limbs which smarted yet. My guide now took me by the hand again,

And over to the ransacked bush he led,

That from its bloody breaches, mourned in vain. "O Jacopo di Sant' Andrea," it said,

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"What hast thou gained in making me thy screen? What blame of thy bad life is on my head? Then, standing opposite, "What hast thou been," My master said, "that by so many sprays Art blowing baleful words with blood between ?" "O souls," he answered, "that are come to gaze On this unseemly havoc, which hath so Dismembered me of leaves, vouchsafe to raise

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And gather them the sad shrub's foot below.

That city was my birthplace, which to take The Baptist, her first patron did forego;

For which his art perpetually shall make

Her mourn; and if there did not still remain,

In Arno's pass, one relic for his sake,

He would have made those citizens in vain

To labour, who upon the ashes spared By Attila, rebuilded her again;

My gibbet of my own house I prepared."

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CANTO XIV.

THE ties of birthplace on my heart prevailing,
I took the scattered leaves from every side,
And gave
them back to him whose breath was failing.
Then came we to the limits which divide

The first belt from the second belt, and where
Dread workmanship of justice was descried.
To plainly show what new scene met us there,
I say, we came above a steppe of land,
Which from its bed makes every plant forbear.
The doleful wood around it draws a band,

As her the dismal moat engirds, and here

Upon the very verge we took our stand.

The space was filled with sand, all thick and sere,

Not differing in semblance from the shore

On which the feet of Cato trod whilere.

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