Inferno
Vanni Fucci's Punishment. Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, Puccio Sciancato, Cianfa de' Donati, and Francesco Cavalcanti.
When he finished speaking, the thief
raised both hands high with his figs extended,
shouting: "Take this, God! I'm aiming them at you!"
From that moment, the serpents became my allies.
One coiled around his neck like a collar of hate,
as if to say: "No more words from you."
Another wrapped his arms, binding them tight,
clinching itself so firmly across his chest
that he could not move a muscle.
Pistoia! Oh, Pistoia! Why don't you
burn yourself to ash and disappear,
since you surpass your ancestors in evil?
Through all the dark circles of this Hell,
I have seen no spirit so defiant against God—
not even him who fell from Thebes' high walls!
The bound man fled without another word.
Then I saw a Centaur racing toward us,
screaming: "Where is he? Where is the mocker?"
I don't think the Maremma marshes hold
as many serpents as covered his back,
all the way up to where his human form begins.
Upon his shoulders, just behind his neck,
a dragon perched with wings spread wide,
setting fire to everything it touched.
My Master said: "That is Cacus, who
beneath the rock of Mount Aventine
created lakes of blood time and again.
He doesn't travel the same path as his brothers
because of the cunning theft he committed—
stealing the great herd that grazed nearby.
His crooked ways ended beneath
the club of Hercules, who perhaps
struck him a hundred times, though he felt barely ten."
While Virgil spoke, the Centaur thundered past,
and three spirits approached from below—
neither my guide nor I noticed them
until they shouted: "Who are you?"
Our conversation stopped,
and we turned our attention to them alone.
I didn't recognize them, but it happened,
as chance sometimes arranges things,
that one was forced to name another,
crying out: "Where has Cianfa gone?"
I pressed my finger to my lips
so my Leader would pay attention.
Reader, if you're slow to believe
what I'm about to tell you, don't be surprised—
I witnessed it and can barely accept it myself.
As I watched them with raised eyebrows,
a six-legged serpent suddenly darted forward,
latching onto one of them completely.
Its middle feet wrapped around his belly,
its front claws seized his arms,
then it sank its fangs into both his cheeks.
Its hind legs stretched along his thighs,
threading its tail between them
and spreading up along his spine.
Ivy never clung to a tree
as tightly as this horrible creature
wound itself around the man's limbs.
They fused together like heated wax,
their colors blending and mixing—
neither looked like what they once were.
Like the brown edge that creeps up paper
ahead of flame, not yet black
but no longer white—that's how they changed.
The other two watched and cried:
"Agnello! Look how you transform!
You are neither two beings nor one!"
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TRANSFORMATION INTO SNAKES
“"Agnello! Look how you transform! / You are neither two beings nor one!"”
The two heads had already become one
when we saw two forms blending
into a single face where both were lost.
Four arms became two,
thighs and legs, chest and belly
merged into limbs never seen before.
Every original feature was erased.
The twisted image appeared
as two and yet neither, departing slowly.
Just as a lizard darts across the road
under the blazing summer sun,
quick as lightning between the hedges—
so appeared a small fiery serpent,
black and livid as a peppercorn,
racing toward the bellies of the other two.
It struck one of them in that place
where we first receive our nourishment,
then fell stretched out before him.
The pierced man stared but said nothing,
standing motionless, yawning
as if overcome by sleep or fever.
He gazed at the serpent, it at him.
One through the wound, the other through its mouth,
they smoked violently, the vapors mingling.
Let Lucan fall silent when he tells
of wretched Sabellus and Nassidius—
wait to hear what I witnessed.
Let Ovid be quiet about Cadmus and Arethusa.
Though he transformed one into snake, one into fountain,
I don't envy him—he never transmuted
two natures face to face, both forms
ready to exchange their very matter.
They responded to each other perfectly:
the serpent split its tail into a fork
while the wounded man drew his feet together.
His legs and thighs fused so completely
that soon no trace of the seam remained visible.
The cleft tail took on the shape
the other was losing, its skin growing soft
while the man's hardened.
I watched arms shrink into armpits
while the reptile's short feet lengthened
exactly as much as the man's contracted.
The serpent's hind feet twisted together,
becoming the organ that men conceal,
while from his own the wretch sprouted two legs.
As smoke veiled them both,
coloring them with new hues,
growing hair on one, stripping it from the other,
one rose up while the other fell down—
though neither turned away their evil eyes
beneath which each changed his face.
The standing figure drew his features toward his temples,
and from excess matter gathering there,
ears emerged from his smooth cheeks.
What didn't flow backward but remained
formed his nose, and thickened his lips
to their proper size.
The prostrate one thrust his face forward,
pulling his ears back into his skull
like a snail retracting its horns.
His tongue, once whole and fit for speech,
split in two, while the other's forked tongue
joined together. The smoke cleared.
The soul transformed into a reptile
fled hissing down the valley
while the other sputtered after him.
Then the new man turned his fresh shoulders
and called to the third: "I want Buoso
to crawl this road as I have done!"
This is how I saw the seventh ditch's cargo
shift and change—let this excuse me
if my pen has wandered in the strangeness.
Though my eyes were dazzled
and my mind reeled,
they couldn't flee so secretly
that I didn't clearly see Puccio Sciancato.
He alone of the three companions
who first appeared remained unchanged.
The other was he whom you mourn, Gaville.