LITMIR.BIZ

      Amid this dread exuberance of woe

      Ran naked spirits wing'd with horrid fear,

      Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide,

      Or heliotrope to charm them out of view.

      With serpents were their hands behind them bound,

      Which through their reins infix'd the tail and head

      Twisted in folds before. And lo! on one

      Near to our side, darted an adder up,

      And, where the neck is on the shoulders tied,

      Transpierc'd him. Far more quickly than e'er pen

      Wrote O or I, he kindled, burn'd, and chang'd

      To ashes, all pour'd out upon the earth.

      When there dissolv'd he lay, the dust again

      Uproll'd spontaneous, and the self-same form

      Instant resumed. So mighty sages tell,

      The Arabian Phoenix, when five hundred years

      Have well nigh circled, dies, and springs forthwith

      Renascent. Blade nor herb throughout his life

      He tastes, but tears of frankincense alone

      And odorous amomum: swaths of nard

      And myrrh his funeral shroud. As one that falls,

      He knows not how, by force demoniac dragg'd

      To 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 endur'd, 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 inquir'd, and thus in few

      He answer'd: “Vanni Fucci am I call'd,

      Not long since rained down from Tuscany

      To this dire gullet. Me the beastial life

      And not the human pleas'd, 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 hither: once

      A man I knew him choleric and bloody.”

      The sinner heard and feign'd not, but towards me

      His mind directing and his face, wherein

      Was dismal shame depictur'd, 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 pines,

      Then Florence changeth citizens and laws.

      From Valdimagra, drawn by wrathful Mars,

      A vapour 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.”