DANTE'S SUBLIME COMEDY: HELL, Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Liars

Florence rejoice, famous on land and sea

            where florins are the common currency.

            That crowds of thieves swarm from you into Hell                   3

cannot delight, does not astonish me.

            Cardinal Prato tried and failed to quell

            the bitter feuding that corrupts your state                                6

and prayed for a total overthrow

            to end your boastful posturing.  I too

pray that this happens soon.  The more I wait                            12

the horrider must be my city’s fate.

            We left that dyke, set foot on the next bridge,

surmounting rocks so jagged and abrupt                                   15

we could not move without the help of hands

            and as we struggled up I grimly thought                                

of how so often mighty powers betray,                                        18

mislead so many.  Being a Florentine

            I swell with hope and pride when I survey

            the scope of what I plan to say in rhyme.                                21

What if my talent leads me far astray?

            I too must pray for more humility.

            At last we rested on the bridge’s height.                                  24       

As peasants, with the coming of the night,

            pause on a hillside before going down

            into a valley where the fireflies glow,                                       27

we stared into the malebolge below

            and saw a flow of sparks. “Each is a flame,”

            my master said, “Clothing a counsellor                                  30

whose lying words fooled people into war.”

            I shuddered, wondered could such words be mine?

            Could things I write become excuse for sin?                           33

I clutched the crag to stop me falling in

            before we climbed down to a nearer view

            some spires of moving fire within that ditch                            36

were taller than the rest and cleft in two.

            My master said, “Each of these double flames

            contains a pair united by their crime.                                        39

Here comes inventor of the wooden horse,

            Ulysees, with beside him Diomed

            who made the Trojans think it was a gift                                 42

proving the war was past, the Greeks had left.

            Both mourn within that fire their stratagem

            which burned down Troy, home of Aeneas                             45

who fled and founded Rome, as I have sung.

            They bemoan also other crafty tricks

            whose outcomes they did not see.” I cried out,                       48

“Master, if they can speak within their flame,

            please I pray you, please let them speak to me!”

            He said, “I like that prayer, so I agree.                                    51

Leave talk to me. Greeks will despise your speech.”

            When the flame came to where my guide thought best

            I heard him cry, “Please pause, hear our request.                    54

We are poets wishing to be your friends.

            You alone can tell us what we never read

            in Homer’s poems – how you met your ends.”                      57

One flaming horn, the biggest of the pair

            first roared and wavered, as if struck by wind,

            then the point flickered, speaking like a tongue.                      60

“Bound home from Troy I lost my way, my men,

            my ships through storms, monsters and women’s wiles,

            so winning home at last I found myself                                   63

unfit for quiet life with wife and son.

            Choosing a crew of some I knew from Troy

            we put to sea, sailed west and reached that strait                      66

between Africa and Spain with before

           only the boundless ocean. Then Hercules

            has put a pillar on each shore inscribed                  69

DO NOT GO THROUGH, and so not many do.

            ‘Shipmates!’ said I, ‘Did we dare, share, survive

            a thousand dangers in search of rest? No!                               72

Greeks believe, strive for virtue and knowledge 

            the best thing in life. Let us sail ahead,

            discover a new world, and if we fail                                         75

what grander way to end can old men find?’

            They cheered and plied their oars, would not have ceased

            to drive us onward had I changed my mind.                            78

We sailed for five moons south. Equator crossed,

            strange constellations shone above at night.

            Then to the east one day as dawn light spread                       81

we saw, dimmed by distance, a splendid sight –

            a land wider than Italy, rising

            high like a mountain far into the sky.                                      84

Our joy soon changed to grief. From that land came

            a storm that struck and whirled us three times round,

heaved our stern high, plunged the prow under waves       87

that closed above us. As fate willed, we drowned.”