Данте Алигьери – The Divine Comedy / Божественная комедия (страница 38)

There with his tokens and with ornate words

Did he deceive Hypsipyle, the maiden

Who first, herself, had all the rest deceived.

There did he leave her pregnant and forlorn;

95 Such sin unto such punishment condemns him,

And also for Medea is vengeance done.

With him go those who in such wise deceive;

And this sufficient be of the first valley

To know, and those that in its jaws it holds.”

100 We were already where the narrow path

Crosses athwart the second dike, and forms

Of that a buttress for another arch.

Thence we heard people, who are making moan

In the next Bolgia, snorting with their muzzles,

105 And with their palms beating upon themselves

The margins were incrusted with a mould

By exhalation from below, that sticks there,

And with the eyes and nostrils wages war.

The bottom is so deep, no place suffices

110 To give us sight of it, without ascending

The arch's back, where most the crag impends.

Thither we came, and thence down in the moat

I saw a people smothered in a filth

That out of human privies seemed to flow;

115 And whilst below there with mine eye I search,

I saw one with his head so foul with ordure,

It was not clear if he were clerk or layman.

He screamed to me: “Wherefore art thou so eager

To look at me more than the other foul ones?”

120 And I to him: “Because, if I remember,

I have already seen thee with dry hair,

And thou'rt Alessio Interminei of Lucca;

Therefore I eye thee more than all the others.”

And he thereon, belabouring his pumpkin:

125 “The flatteries have submerged me here below,

Wherewith my tongue was never surfeited.”

Then said to me the Guide: “See that thou thrust

Thy visage somewhat farther in advance,

That with thine eyes thou well the face attain

130 Of that uncleanly and dishevelled drab,

Who there doth scratch herself with filthy nails,

And crouches now, and now on foot is standing.

Thais the harlot is it, who replied

Unto her paramour, when he said, 'Have I

135 Great gratitude from thee?'—'Nay, marvellous;'

And herewith let our sight be satisfied.”

Canto XIX

O Simon Magus, O forlorn disciples,

Ye who the things of God, which ought to be

The brides of holiness, rapaciously

For silver and for gold do prostitute,

5 Now it behoves for you the trumpet sound,

Because in this third Bolgia ye abide.

We had already on the following tomb

Ascended to that portion of the crag

Which o'er the middle of the moat hangs plumb.

10 Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest

In heaven, in earth, and in the evil world,

And with what justice doth thy power distribute!

I saw upon the sides and on the bottom

The livid stone with perforations filled,

15 All of one size, and every one was round.

To me less ample seemed they not, nor greater

Than those that in my beautiful Saint John

Are fashioned for the place of the baptisers,