The Seventh Circle. The Second Ring. Violence against
Oneself. Suicides and Squanderers
Not yet had Nessus reached the other side,
when we had set our steps within a wood,
which was not marked by any path whatever.
No green leaves there, but leaves of gloomy hue;
no smooth and straight, but gnarled and twisted, twigs;
nor was there any fruit, but poison-thorns.
No thickets rough and dense as these are owned
by those wild beasts, that hate the tilled estates
that lie between the Cécina and Corneto.
Herein those ugly Harpies make their nest,
who drove the Trojans from the Strophades,
with gloomy prophecies of future loss.
Wide wings they have, and human necks and faces;
their feet are clawed, and feathered their great bellies;
they utter wailings on the uncouth trees.
My kindly Teacher then began to say:
“Before thou enter any further, know
that in the second ring thou art, and wilt be,
until thou reach the horrid plain of sand;
hence look around thee well, and things thou ’lt see,
that from my words would take away belief.”
Moans I heard uttered upon every side,
but saw no person who might make them there;
hence, utterly confused, I checked my steps.
I think he thought I thought that all those voices
were uttered from among those thorny trunks
by people hiding there on our account.
The Teacher therefore said: “If thou break off
a little twig from any of these trees,
the thoughts thou hast will all be proven false.”
I then stretched out my hand a little way,
and from a sturdy thorn-tree plucked a twig,
whereat its trunk cried out: “Why dost thou rend me?”
Then, after growing dark with blood, its cry
began again: “Why dost thou break me off?
Hast thou no spirit of compassion in thee?
Men were we once, and now are stocks become;
thy hand ought surely to have had more pity,
even if the souls of serpents we had been.”
As from a fresh, green log, that at one end
is being burned, and at the other drips
and makes a hissing with the escaping air;
so from the broken twig together issued
both words and blood; I therefore dropped the end,
and stood dumbfounded, like a man who fears.
“Had he before been able to believe,
O wounded soul,” replied my Sage to him,
“what in my verses only he has seen,
he had not set his hand on thee; whereas
the thing’s incredibility has made me
lead him to do what I myself regret.
But tell him who thou wast, that he, by way
of compensation, may refresh thy fame
up in the world, where he can still return.”
The trunk: “With sweet words thou dost so entice me,
that I can not keep still; be not annoyed,
if I am tempted to a little talk.
I am the man who once held both the keys
of Frederick’s heart, and he who turned them round
so gently,…
