The Eighth Circle. Fraud
The Sixth Trench. Hypocrites
Silent, alone, and unaccompanied,
we went along, one first and one behind,
as Minor Friars go when on the road.
My thoughts, by reason of the present brawl,
were turned to Aesop’s fable, that wherein
he talks about the frog and mouse; for ‘now’
and ‘at this moment’ are no more alike,
than one is like the other, if beginning
and end be linked by an attentive mind.
And ev’n as one thought from another springs,
so, next, from that one was another born,
which doubled my first fear. Hence thus I thought:
“These devils have been scorned on our account,
and with such injury and scoff, indeed,
that I believe that they are greatly vexed.
If anger to ill-will be joined, they ’ll come
more fiercely after us, than doth a dog
the rabbit which he seizes with his teeth.”
Already was I feeling all my hair
bristling with fear, when, gazing back intent,
I said: “If, Teacher, thou hide not thyself
and me with speed, I dread the Evilclaws;
we have them now behind us, and I so
imagine them, that I already feel them.”
And he: “If I were made of leaded glass,
thine outward image I would not reflect
more quickly than thine inward I receive.
Even now thy thoughts were coming among mine
with outlook and intent so similar,
that I with both a single purpose formed.
If it be true the right bank slopeth so,
that to the following trench we can descend,
we shall escape from this imagined chase.”
He had not finished telling me his plan,
when not far off I saw them coming on
with wings outspread, intent on seizing us.
My Leader then took hold of me at once,
even as a mother, by the noise aroused,
and seeing close to her the burning flames,
seizes her child and flees, and doth not stop,
since caring more for him than for herself,
even long enough to clothe her with a shift;
and downward from the ridge of that hard bank,
his back he yielded to the hanging rock,
which closes one side of the following trench.
Water ne’er moved as swiftly through a sluice,
to turn the overshot wheel of a mill,
when closest to the paddles it approaches,
as did my Teacher o’er that selvage-bank,
bearing me down with him upon his back,
as though his son I were, and not his mate.
His feet had hardly reached the trench’s bed
below, when they were on the ridge above,
just over us; but naught was now to fear;
because the Providence on high, which willed
to place them in the fifth trench as its servants,
takes from them all the power of leaving it.
A painted people found we there below,
who, moving with exceedingly slow steps,
shed tears, and in their looks appeared subdued
and weary. Cloaks they had equipped with cowls
lowered before their eyes, and cut like those
