The Seventh Circle. The First Ring. Violence against one’s Fellow Man. Murderers and Spoilers. Phlegethon
The place, where to descend the bank we came,
was Alp-like, and, through what was also there,
such that all eyes would be repelled by it.
As is that downfall on the hither side
of Trent, which sidewise smote the Àdige,
through earthquake or through failure of support;
since from the mountain’s summit, whence it moved
down to the plain, the rock is shattered so,
that it would yield a path for one above;
even such was the descent of that ravine;
and on the border of the broken bank
was stretched at length the Infamy of Crete,
who in the seeming heifer was conceived;
and when he saw us there he bit himself,
like one whom inward anger overcomes.
In his direction then my Sage cried out:
“Dost thou, perhaps, think Athens’ duke is here,
who gave thee death when in the world above?
Begone, thou beast! for this man cometh not
taught by thy sister, but is going by,
in order to behold your punishments.”
As doth a bull, who from his leash breaks free
the moment he receives the mortal blow,
and cannot walk, but plunges here and there;
so doing I beheld the Minotaur;
and he, aware, cried out: “Run to the pass!
’t is well that, while he rages, thou descend.”
Thereat we made our way adown that heap
of fallen rocks, which often ’neath my feet
were moved, because of their unwonted load.
I went along in thought; and he: “Perchance
thou thinkest of this landslide, which is guarded
by that beast’s anger which I quenched just now.
Now I would have thee know that, when down here
to nether Hell I came, that other time,
this mass of rock had not yet fallen down.
But certainly, if I remember well,
not long ere He arrived, who carried off
from Dis the highest circle’s mighty prey,
on every side the deep and foul abyss
so trembled that I thought the universe
had felt the love, whereby, as some believe,
the world to Chaos hath been oft reduced;
and at that moment this old mass of rock
was thus, both here and elsewhere, overthrown.
But turn thine eyes down yonder now; for lo,
the stream of blood is drawing near to us,
wherein boils who by violence harms others.”
O blind cupidity, O foolish wrath,
that so dost in our short life goad us on,
and after, in the eternal, steep us thus!
I saw a wide moat curving in an arc,
and such that it embraces all the plain,
according as my Escort had informed me;
and in a file, between it and the bank,
Centaurs were running by, with arrows armed,
as in the world it was their wont to hunt.
On seeing us descend, they all stopped short,
and three of them detached them from the troop,
with bows and arrows they had chosen first.
And one…
