The Eighth Circle. Fraud
The Seventh Trench. Thieves
When in the youthful season of the year
the sun beneath Aquarius warms his locks,
while southward now the nights pursue their way;
and when the hoar-frost draws upon the ground
the counterfeit of her white sister’s face,
though shortly lasts the temper of her pen;
the peasant, lacking provender, gets up,
looks out, and, seeing all the country white,
slaps himself on the thigh, returns in doors,
and walking to and fro, laments, poor wretch,
not knowing what to do; then later on
returning out again, recovers hope,
on seeing that the world has shortly changed
its face; and, taking down his shepherd-staff,
out to their feeding drives his tender sheep.
Even thus my Teacher filled me with dismay,
when I beheld such trouble in his face;
thus, too, the plaster quickly reached the wound;
for when we had attained the ruined bridge,
my Leader turned to me with that sweet look,
which at the Mountain’s foot I first perceived.
First having well surveyed the ruined arch,
after some counsel taken with himself,
his arms he opened, and took hold of me.
And like a man who ponders while he acts,
and always seems to look ahead; ev’n so,
while upward to the top of one great rock
he pushed me, he sought out another crag,
and said: “Take hold of that one next, but first
see whether it be fit to bear thy weight.”
No path was this for one who wore a cloak,
since scarcely could we two, though he was light,
and I was pushed, ascend from rock to rock.
And had the slope on that bank not been shorter,
than on the other, I know not of him,
but I would surely have been overcome;
but since the whole of Malebolgë slopes
down to the opening of the lowest well,
such is the nature of each trench’s banks,
that one is high, and low the following one;
and yet we reached at length the ridge above,
from which the crag’s last rock projects.
My breath was so exhausted from my lungs,
when up at last, that I could go no further;
nay, on arriving I sat down at once.
“Thus, henceforth, must thou rid thyself of sloth,”
my Teacher said; “for one attains not fame,
sitting on cushions, or ’neath canopies;
and he that lives without attaining it,
leaveth on earth such traces of himself,
as smoke doth in the air, or foam in water.
Therefore get up! O’ercome thy troubled breath
with that soul-energy, which wins all fights,
unless it sink beneath its body’s weight!
A longer stairway must be climbed; ’t is not
enough that these stairs have been left; if, then,
thou understand me, let it profit thee.”
I thereupon arose, and showed myself
better equipped with breath than I had felt,
and said: “Go on, for I am strong and bold!”
We took the pathway up along the crag,
which rocky was, narrow…
