The Seventh Circle. The Third Ring
Violence against God. Blasphemers
Since love for my own native place constrained me,
I gathered up the scattered twigs and leaves,
and gave them back to him who now was weak.
Thence to the bound we came, where from the third
the second ring is severed, and wherein
a frightful form of Justice may be seen.
To manifest aright what here was new,
I say that we had reached a barren plain,
which from its bed removeth every plant.
The woeful wood is as a garland round it,
as round the former is the dismal moat;
there on its very edge we stayed our steps.
Its soil was of a dense and arid sand,
whose nature differed in no way from that,
which once was trodden by the feet of Cato.
Vengeance of God, how much by every one
thou oughtest to be feared, who readeth here
what to these eyes of mine was manifest!
Of naked souls I many flocks beheld,
who all wept very sorely, while on each
a different law appeared to be imposed.
A few lay on the ground upon their backs;
and some were seated cuddled up together,
while others moved about continually.
Most numerous were those that moved around,
and least so those that under torment lay,
but all the freer had their tongues to wail.
Down on the whole great waste of sand there rained
with gentle fall dilated flakes of fire,
like flakes of snow that fall on windless Alps.
As were the flames which Alexander saw
in India’s torrid regions, as they fell
upon his hosts, unbroken to the ground;
— and this he met, by ordering his troops
to trample on the soil, because the flames,
when single, were more easily put out —
even such descended here the eternal heat,
whereby the sand was set on fire, as tinder
is kindled under steel, to double pain.
And ever without resting was the dance
of wretched hands, that kept, now here, now there,
slapping away each latest burning flake.
“Thou, Teacher,” I began, “that conquerest all,
except the stubborn devils who came out
against us at the entrance of the gate,
who is that great one who seems not to mind
the fire, but lies there scornful and awry,
so that the rain seems not to ripen him?”
And that same one, who had observed that I
concerning him was questioning my Leader,
cried: “As I was alive, such am I dead!
If Jove should tire that smith of his, from whom,
in wrath, he took the pointed thunderbolt,
wherewith I smitten was that final day;
or should he tire the others, each in turn,
in Mongibello’s smithy black with smoke,
by calling out: ‘Help, help, good Vulcan, help!’
even as he did on Phlegra’s battle-field;
and should he shoot at me with all his might,
no glad revenge would he obtain thereby!”
Thereat my Leader spoke with so much force,
that I had…
