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off his haunch

       Deposed me not, till to the hole he brought me

       Of him who so lamented with his shanks.

      "Whoe'er thou art, that standest upside down,

       O doleful soul, implanted like a stake,"

       To say began I, "if thou canst, speak out."

      I stood even as the friar who is confessing

       The false assassin, who, when he is fixed,

       Recalls him, so that death may be delayed.

      And he cried out: "Dost thou stand there already,

       Dost thou stand there already, Boniface?

       By many years the record lied to me.

      Art thou so early satiate with that wealth,

       For which thou didst not fear to take by fraud

       The beautiful Lady, and then work her woe?"

      Such I became, as people are who stand,

       Not comprehending what is answered them,

       As if bemocked, and know not how to answer.

      Then said Virgilius: "Say to him straightway,

       'I am not he, I am not he thou thinkest.'"

       And I replied as was imposed on me.

      Whereat the spirit writhed with both his feet,

       Then, sighing, with a voice of lamentation

       Said to me: "Then what wantest thou of me?

      If who I am thou carest so much to know,

       That thou on that account hast crossed the bank,

       Know that I vested was with the great mantle;

      And truly was I son of the She-bear,

       So eager to advance the cubs, that wealth

       Above, and here myself, I pocketed.

      Beneath my head the others are dragged down

       Who have preceded me in simony,

       Flattened along the fissure of the rock.

      Below there I shall likewise fall, whenever

       That one shall come who I believed thou wast,

       What time the sudden question I proposed.

      But longer I my feet already toast,

       And here have been in this way upside down,

       Than he will planted stay with reddened feet;

      For after him shall come of fouler deed

       From tow'rds the west a Pastor without law,

       Such as befits to cover him and me.

      New Jason will he be, of whom we read

       In Maccabees; and as his king was pliant,

       So he who governs France shall be to this one."

      I do not know if I were here too bold,

       That him I answered only in this metre:

       "I pray thee tell me now how great a treasure

      Our Lord demanded of Saint Peter first,

       Before he put the keys into his keeping?

       Truly he nothing asked but 'Follow me.'

      Nor Peter nor the rest asked of Matthias

       Silver or gold, when he by lot was chosen

       Unto the place the guilty soul had lost.

      Therefore stay here, for thou art justly punished,

       And keep safe guard o'er the ill-gotten money,

       Which caused thee to be valiant against Charles.

      And were it not that still forbids it me

       The reverence for the keys superlative

       Thou hadst in keeping in the gladsome life,

      I would make use of words more grievous still;

       Because your avarice afflicts the world,

       Trampling the good and lifting the depraved.

      The Evangelist you Pastors had in mind,

       When she who sitteth upon many waters

       To fornicate with kings by him was seen;

      The same who with the seven heads was born,

       And power and strength from the ten horns received,

       So long as virtue to her spouse was pleasing.

      Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver;

       And from the idolater how differ ye,

       Save that he one, and ye a hundred worship?

      Ah, Constantine! of how much ill was mother,

       Not thy conversion, but that marriage dower

       Which the first wealthy Father took from thee!"

      And while I sang to him such notes as these,

       Either that anger or that conscience stung him,

       He struggled violently with both his feet.

      I think in sooth that it my Leader pleased,

       With such contented lip he listened ever

       Unto the sound of the true words expressed.

      Therefore with both his arms he took me up,

       And when he had me all upon his breast,

       Remounted by the way where he descended.

      Nor did he tire to have me clasped to him;

       But bore me to the summit of the arch

       Which from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage.

      There tenderly he laid his burden down,

       Tenderly on the crag uneven and steep,

       That would have been hard passage for the goats:

      Thence was unveiled to me another valley.

      Canto XX. The Fourth Bolgia: Soothsayers. Amphiaraus, Tiresias, Aruns, Manto, Eryphylus, Michael Scott, Guido Bonatti, and Asdente. Virgil reproaches Dante's Pity. Mantua's Foundation.

       Table of Contents

      Of a new pain behoves me to make verses

       And give material to the twentieth canto

       Of the first song, which is of the submerged.

      I was already thoroughly disposed

       To peer down into the uncovered depth,

       Which bathed itself with tears of agony;

      And people saw I through the circular valley,

       Silent and weeping, coming at the pace

       Which in this world the Litanies assume.

      As lower down my sight descended on them,

       Wondrously each one seemed to be distorted

       From chin to the beginning of the chest;

      For tow'rds the reins the countenance was turned,

       And backward it behoved them to advance,

       As to look forward had been taken from them.

      Perchance indeed by violence of palsy

       Some one has been thus wholly turned awry;

       But I ne'er saw it, nor believe it can be.

      As God may let thee, Reader, gather fruit

      

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