The Portable Dante (14 page)

to forbid my entrance to the halls of grief!”

He spoke to me: “You need not be disturbed by my vexation, for I shall win the contest, no matter how they plot to keep us out!

This insolence of theirs is nothing new; they used it once at a less secret gate, which is, and will forever be, unlocked;

you saw the deadly words inscribed above it; and now, already past it, and descending, across the circles, down the slope, alone,

The color of the coward on my face, when I realized my guide was turning back, made him quickly change the color of his own.

He stood alert, like one who strains to hear; his eyes could not see far enough ahead to cut the heavy fog of that black air.

“But surely we were meant to win this fight, ” he said, “or else … but no, such help was promised! Oh, how much time it’s taking him to come!”

I saw too well how quickly he amended his opening words with what he added on! They were different from the ones he first pronounced;

but nonetheless his words made me afraid, perhaps because the phrase he left unfinished I finished with worse meaning than he meant.

“Has anyone before ever descended to this sad hollow’s depths from that first circle whose pain is all in having hope cut off?”

I put this question to him. He replied, “It is not usual for one of us to make the journey I am making now.

But it happens I was down here once before, conjured by that heartless witch, Erichtho (who could recall the spirit to its body).

Soon after I had left my flesh in death she sent me through these walls, and down as far as the pit of Judas to bring a spirit out;

and that place is the lowest and the darkest and the farthest from the sphere that circles all; I know the road, and well, you can be sure.

This swamp that breathes with a prodigious stink lies in a circle round the doleful city that now we cannot enter without strife. ”

And he said other things, but I forget them, for suddenly my eyes were drawn above, up to the fiery top of that high tower36 where in no time at all and all at once sprang up three hellish Furies stained with blood, their bodies and their gestures those of females;

their waists were bound in cords of wild green hydras, horned snakes and little serpents grew as hair, and twined themselves around the savage temples.

And he who had occasion to know well the handmaids of the queen of timeless woe cried out to me “Look there! The fierce Erinyes!

That is Megaera, the one there to the left, and that one raving on the right, Alecto, Tisiphone, in the middle. ” He said no more.

With flailing palms the three would beat their breasts, then tear them with their nails, shrieking so loud, I drew close to the poet, confused with fear.

“Medusa, come, we’ll turn him into stone, ” they shouted all together glaring down, “how wrong we were to let off Theseus lightly! ”

“Now turn your back and cover up your eyes, for if the Gorgon comes and you should see her, there would be no returning to the world! ”

These were my master’s words. He turned me round and did not trust my hands to hide my eyes but placed his own on mine and kept them covered.

O all of you whose intellects are sound, look now and see the meaning that is hidden beneath the veil that covers my strange verses:

and then, above the filthy swell, approaching, a blast of sound, shot through with fear, exploded, making both shores of Hell begin to tremble;

it sounded like one of those violent winds, born from the clash of counter-temperatures, that tear through forests; raging on unchecked,

it splits and rips and carries off the branches and proudly whips the dust up in its path and makes the beasts and shepherds flee its course!

He freed my eyes and said, “Now turn around and set your sight along the ancient scum, there where the marsh’s mist is hovering thickest. ”

As frogs before their enemy, the snake, all scatter through the pond and then dive down until each one is squatting on the bottom,

so I saw more than a thousand fear-shocked souls in flight, clearing the path of one who came walking the Styx, his feet dry on the water.

From time to time with his left hand he fanned his face to push the putrid air away, and this was all that seemed to weary him.

I was certain now that he was sent from Heaven. I turned to my guide, but he made me a sign to keep my silence and bow low to this one.

Ah, the scorn that filled his holy presence! He reached the gate and touched it with a wand; it opened without resistance from inside.

“O Heaven’s outcasts, despicable souls, ” he started, standing on the dreadful threshold, “what insolence is this that breeds in you?

Why do you stubbornly resist that will whose end can never be denied and which, more than one time, increased your suffering?

What do you gain by locking horns with fate? If you remember well, your Cerberus still bears his chin and throat peeled clean for that! ”

He turned then and retraced the squalid path without one word to us, and on his face the look of one concerned and spurred by things

that were not those he found surrounding him. And then we started moving toward the city in the safety of the holy words pronounced.

We entered there, and with no opposition. And I, so anxious to investigate the state of souls locked up in such a fortress,

once in the place, allowed my eyes to wander, and saw, in all directions spreading out, a countryside of pain and ugly anguish.

As at Arles where the Rhône turns to stagnant waters or as at Pola near Quarnero’s Gulf that closes Italy and bathes her confines,

the sepulchers make all the land uneven, so they did here, strewn in all directions, except the graves here served a crueler purpose:

for scattered everywhere among the tombs were flames that kept them glowing far more hot than any iron an artisan might use.

Each tomb had its lid loose, pushed to one side, and from within came forth such fierce laments that I was sure inside were tortured souls.

I asked, “Master, what kind of shades are these lying down here, buried in the graves of stone, speaking their presence in such dolorous sighs? ”

And he replied: “There lie arch-heretics of every sect, with all of their disciples; more than you think are packed within these tombs.

Like heretics lie buried with their like and the graves burn more, or less, accordingly. ” Then turning to the right, we moved ahead

between the torments there and those high walls.

Now onward down a narrow path, between the city’s ramparts and the suffering, my master walks, I following close behind.

“O lofty power who through these impious gyres lead me around as you see fit, ” I said, “I want to know, I want to understand:

the people buried there in sepulchers, can they be seen? I mean, since all the lids are off the tombs and no one stands on guard. ”

And he: “They will forever be locked up, when they return here from Jehoshaphat with the bodies that they left up in the world.

The private cemetery on this side serves Epicurus and his followers, who make the soul die when the body dies.

As for the question you just put to me, it will be answered soon, while we are here; and the wish you are keeping from me will be granted. ”

And I: “O my good guide, I do not hide my heart; I’m trying not to talk too much, as you have told me more than once to do. ”

“O Tuscan walking through our flaming city, alive, and speaking with such elegance, be kind enough to stop here for a while.

Your mode of speech identifies you clearly as one whose birthplace is that noble city with which in my time, perhaps, I was too harsh. ”

One of the vaults resounded suddenly with these clear words, and I, intimidated, drew up a little closer to my guide,

who said, “What are you doing? Turn around and look at Farinata, who has risen, you will see him from the waist up standing straight. ”

I already had my eyes fixed on his face, and there he stood out tall, with his chest and brow proclaiming his disdain for all this Hell.