earth, or through obstruction fettering up
In chains invisible the powers of man,
Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around,
Bewilder’d with the monstrous agony
He hath endured, and wildly staring sighs;
So stood aghast the sinner when he rose.
Oh! how severe God’s judgment, that deals out
Such blows in stormy vengeance. Who he was,
My teacher next inquired; and thus in few
He answer’d: “Vanni Fucci[161] am I call’d,
Not long since rained down from Tuscany
To this dire gullet. Me the bestial life
And not the human pleased, mule that I was,
Who in Pistoia found my worthy den.”
I then to Virgil: “Bid him stir not hence;
And ask what crime did thrust him thither: once
A man I knew him, choleric and bloody.”
The sinner heard and feign’d not, but toward me
His mind directing and his face, wherein
Was dismal shame depictured, thus he spake:
“It grieves me more to have been caught by thee
In this sad plight, which thou beholdest, than
When I was taken from the other life.
I have no power permitted to deny
What thou inquirest. I am doom’d thus low
To dwell, for that the sacristy by me
Was rifled of its goodly ornaments,
And with the guilt another falsely charged.
But that thou mayst not joy to see me thus,
So as thou e’er shalt ’scape this darksome realm,
Open thine ears and hear what I forebode.
Reft of the Neri first Pistoia[162] pines;
Then Florence[163] changeth citizens and laws;
From Valdimagra,[164] drawn by wrathful Mars,
A vapor rises, wrapt in turbid mists,
And sharp and eager driveth on the storm
With Arrowy hurtling o’er Piceno’s field,
Whence suddenly the cloud shall burst, and strike
Each helpless Bianco prostrate to the ground.
This have I told, that grief may rend thy heart.”
Canto XXV
Argument.—The sacrilegious Fucci vents his fury in blasphemy, is seized by serpents, and flying is pursued by Cacus in the form of a Centaur, who is described with a swarm of serpents on his haunch, and a dragon on his shoulders breathing forth fire. Our Poet then meets with the spirits of three of his countrymen, two of whom undergo a marvelous transformation in his presence.
When he had spoke, the sinner raised his hands[165]
Pointed in mockery and cried” “Take them, God!
I level them at thee.” From that day forth
The serpents were my friends; for round his neck
One of them rolling twisted, as it said,
“Be silent, tongue!” Another, to his arms
Upgliding, tied them, riveting itself
So close, it took from them the power to move.
Pistoia! ah, Pistoia! why dost doubt
To turn thee into ashes, cumbering earth
No longer, since in evil act so far
Thou hast outdone thy seed? I did not mark,
Through all the gloomy circles of the abyss,
Spirit, that swell’d so proudly ’gainst his God;
Not him,[166] who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled,
Nor utter’d more; and after him there came
A Centaur full of fury, shouting, “Where,
Where is the caitiff?” On Maremma’s marsh[167]
Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch
They swarm’d, to where the human face begins.
Behind his head, upon the shoulders, lay
With open wings a dragon, breathing fire
On whomsoe’er he met. To me my guide:
“Cacus is this, who underneath the rock
Of Aventine spread oft a lake of blood.
He, from his brethren parted, here must tread
A different journey, for his fraudful theft
Of the great herd that near him stall’d; whence found
His felon deeds their end, beneath the mace
Of stout Alcides, that perchance laid on
A hundred blows, and not the tenth was felt.”
While yet he spake, the Centaur sped away:
And under us three spirits came, of whom
Nor I nor he was ware, till they exclaim’d,
“Say who are ye!” We then brake off discourse,
Intent on these alone. I knew them not:
But, as it chanceth oft, befell that one
Had need to name another. “Where,” said he,
“Doth Cianfa[168] lurk?” I, for a sign my guide
Should stand attentive, placed against my lips
The finger
