arrive.
This only would I have thee clearly note:
That, so my conscience have no plea against me,
Do Fortune as she list, I stand prepared.
Not new or strange such earnest to mine ear.
Speed Fortune then her wheel, as likes her best;
The clown his mattock; all things have their course.”
Thereat my sapient guide upon his right
Turn’d himself back, then looked at me, and spake:
“He listens to good purpose who takes note.”
I not the less still on my way proceed,
Discoursing with Brunetto, and inquire
Who are most known and chief among his tribe.
“To know of some is well;” he thus replied,
“But of the rest silence may best beseem.
Time would not serve us for report so long.
In brief I tell thee, that all these were clerks,
Men of great learning and no less renown,
By one same sin polluted in the world.
With them is Priscian; and Accorso’s son,
Francesco,[105] herds among the wretched throng:
And, if the wish of so impure a blotch
Possess’d thee, him thou also mightst have seen,
Who by the servants’ servant was transferr’d
From Arno’s seat to Bacchiglione, where
His ill-strain’d nerves he left. I more would add,
But must from further speech and onward way
Alike desist; for yonder I behold
A mist new-risen on the sandy plain.
A company, with whom I may not sort,
Approaches, I commend my Treasure to thee,
Wherein I yet survive; my sole request.”
This said, he turn’d, and seem’d as one of those
Who o’er Verona’s champaign try their speed
For the green mantle; and of them he seem’d,
Not he who loses but who gains the prize.
Canto XVI
Argument.—Journeying along the pier, which crosses the sand, they are now so near the end of it as to hear the noise of the stream falling into the eighth circle, when they meet the spirits of three military men; who judging Dante, from his dress, to be a countryman of theirs, entreat him to stop. He complies and speaks with them. The two Poets then reach the place where the water descends, being the termination of this third compartment in the seventh circle; and here Virgil, having thrown down into the hollow a cord, wherewith Dante was girt, they behold at that signal a monstrous and horrible figure come swimming up to them.
Now came I where the water’s din was heard
As down it fell into the other round,
Resounding like the hum of swarming bees:
When forth together issued from a troop,
That pass’d beneath the fierce tormenting storm,
Three spirits, running swift. They toward us came,
And each one cried aloud, “Oh! do thou stay,
Whom, by the fashion of thy garb, we deem
To be some inmate of our evil land.”
Ah me! what wounds I mark’d upon their limbs,
Recent and old, inflicted by the flames.
E’en the remembrance of them grieves me yet.
Attentive to their cry, my teacher paused,
And turned to me his visage, and then spake:
“Wait now: our courtesy these merit well:
And were’t not for the nature of the place,
Whence glide the fiery darts, I should have said,
That haste had better suited thee than them.”
They, when we stopp’d, resumed their ancient wail,
And, soon as they had reach’d us, all the three
Whirl’d round together in one restless wheel.
As naked champions, smear’d with slippery oil
Are wont, intent, to watch their place of hold
And vantage, ere in closer strife they meet;
Thus each one, as he wheel’d, his countenance
At me directed, so that opposite
The neck moved ever to the twinkling feet.
“If woe of this unsound and dreary waste,”
Thus one began, “added to our sad cheer
Thus peel’d with flame, do call forth scorn on us
And our entreaties, let our great renown
Incline thee to inform us who thou art,
That dost imprint, with living feet unharm’d,
The soil of Hell. He, in whose track thou seest
My steps pursuing, naked though he be
And reft of all, was of more high estate
Than thou believest; grandchild of the chaste
Gualdrada,[106] him they Guidoguerra call’d,
Who in his lifetime many a noble act
Achieved, both by his wisdom and his sword.
The other, next to me that beats the sand,
Is Aldobrandi,[107] name deserving well,
In the upper world, of honor; and myself,
Who
