Circles of Hell by Dante

Author:Dante
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141980232
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2014-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

Canto XIX

SIMONISTS

You! Magic Simon, and your sorry school!

Things that are God’s own – things that, truly, are

the brides of goodness – lusting cruelly

after gold and silver, you turn them all to whores.

The trumpet now (and rightly!) sounds for you.

There you all are, well set in Pocket Three.

Onwards towards this yawning tomb, mounting

the ridge, by now we’d reached its summit –

the point that plumbs the middle of the ditch.

O wisdom in the height, how great the art

that you display in Heaven, on earth and even

in that evil world! How justly you deal power!

I saw how all the livid rock was drilled

with holes – along its flanks, across its floor –

all circular, and all of equal measure.

To me they seemed, in radius, no more nor less

than fonts that, in my own beloved Saint John’s,

allow the priest at baptisms a place to stand.

(Not long ago, I shattered one of those.

Someone was drowning there. I got them out.

This, sealed and sworn, is nothing but the truth.)

Out of the mouth of every single hole

there floated up a pair of sinner feet,

legs to the ham on show, the rest concealed.

The soles of all these feet were set alight,

and each pair wriggled at the joint so hard

they’d easily have ripped a rope or lanyard.

As flames go flickering round some greasy thing

and hover just above its outer rind,

so these flames also, toe tip to heel end.

‘Who, sir,’ I said, ‘is that one there? That one

who jerks in pain greater than his confrères,

sucked at by flames far more fiercely vermilion.’

‘I’ll lift you down,’ he answered me, ‘if you

insist. We’ll take that bank the easier.

He’ll talk to you himself about his twists.’

‘Whatever pleases you,’ I said, ‘to me is good.

Lord, you remain: I’ll not depart – you know –

from what you will. You read my silent thoughts.’

So on we went to the fourth embankment.

We turned around, descended on our left,

arriving at that pitted, straitened floor.

My teacher, kindly, did not set me down –

nor loose me from his hip hold – till we had reached

that fissure where (all tears) shanks shuddered.

‘Whatever you might be there, upside down,

staked, you unhappy spirit, like a pole,

if you,’ I said, ‘are able, then speak out.’

So there I stood like any friar who shrives

the hired assassin – head down in the earth –

who calls him back to put off stifling death.

And he yelled out: ‘Is that you standing there?

Are you there, on your feet still, Boniface?

The writings lied to me by quite some years.

Are you so sick of owning things already?

Till now, you’ve hardly been afraid to cheat

our lovely woman, tearing her to shreds.’

Well, I just stood there (you will know just how)

simply not getting what I’d heard come out,

feeling a fool, uncertain what to say.

Then Virgil entered: ‘Say this – and make speed:

“No, that’s not me. I am not who you think.” ’

And so I answered as he’d said I should.

At which – all feet – the spirit thrashed about,

then, sighing loudly in a tearful voice:

‘So what is it you want of me?’ he said.

‘If

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