they do gnarl upon us, and their scowl
Threatens us present tortures?” He replied:
“I charge thee, fear not: let them, as they will,
Gnarl on: ’tis but in token of their spite
Against the souls who mourn in torment steep’d.”
To leftward o’er the pier they turn’d; but each
Had first between his teeth prest close the tongue,
Toward their leader for a signal looking,
Which he with sound obscene triumphant gave.
Canto XXII
Argument.—Virgil and Dante proceed, accompanied by the Demons, and see other sinners of the same description in the same gulf. The device of Ciampolo, one of these, to escape from the Demons, who had laid hold on him.
It hath been heretofore my chance to see
Horsemen with martial order shifting camp,
To onset sallying, or in muster ranged,
Or in retreat sometimes outstretch’d for flight:
Light-armed squadrons and fleet foragers
Scouring thy plains, Arezzo! have I seen,
And clashing tournaments, and titling jousts,
Now with the sound of trumpets, now of bells,
Tabors, or signals made from castled heights;
And with inventions multiform, our own,
Or introduced from foreign land; but ne’er
To such a strange recorder I beheld,
In evolution moving, horse nor foot,
Nor ship, the tack’d by sign from land or star.
With the ten Demons on our way we went;
Ah, fearful company! but in the church
With saints, with gluttons at the tavern’s mess.
Still earnest on the pitch I gazed, to mark
All things whate’er the chasm contain’d, and those
Who burn’d within. As dolphins that, in sign
To mariners, heave high their arched backs,
That thence forewarn’d they may advise to save
Their threaten’d vessel; so, at intervals,
To ease the pain, his back some sinner show’d,
Then hid more nimbly than the lightning-glance.
E’en as the frogs, that of a watery moat
Stand at the brink, with the jaws only out,
Their feet and of the trunk all else conceal’d,
Thus on each part the sinners stood; but soon
As Barbariccia was at hand, so they
Drew back under the wave. I saw, and yet
My heart doth stragger, one, that waited thus,
As it befalls that oft one frog remains,
While the next springs away: and Graffiacan,
Who of the fiends was nearest, grappling seized
His clotted locks, and dragg’d him sprawling up,
That he appear’d to me an otter. Each
Already by their names I knew, so well
When they were chosen I observed, and mark’d
How one the other call’d. “O Rubicant!
See that his hide thou with thy talons flay,”
Shouted together all the cursed crew.
Then I: “Inform thee, Master! if thou may,
What wretched soul is this, on whom their hands
His foes have laid.” My leader to his side
Approach’d, and whence he came inquired; to whom
Was answer’d thus: “Born in Navarre’s domain,[149]
My mother placed me in a lord’s retinue:
For she had borne me to a losel vile,
A spendthrift of his substance and himself.
The good King Thibault[150] after that I served:
To peculating here my thoughts were turn’d,
Whereof I give account in this dire heat.”
Straight Ciriatto, from whose mouth a tusk
Issued on either side, as from a boar,
Ripp’d him with one of these. ’Twixt evil claws
The mouse had fallen: but Barbariccia cried,
Seizing him with both arms: “Stand thou apart
While I do fix him on my prong transpierced.”
Then added, turning to my guide his face,
“Inquire of him, if more thou wish to learn,
Ere he again be rent.” My leader thus:
“Then tell us of the partners in thy guilt;
Knowest thou any sprung of Latin land
Under the tar?” “I parted,” he replied,
“But now from one, who sojourn’d not far thence;
So were I under shelter now with him,
Nor hook nor talon then should scare me more.”
“Too long we suffer,” Libicocco cried;
Then, darting forth a prong, seized on his arm,
And mangled bore away the sinewy part.
Him Draghinazzo by his thighs beneath
Would next have caught; whence angrily their chief,
