Inferno
The Eighth Bolgia: Evil Counsellors. Ulysses and Diomed. Ulysses' Last Voyage. Rejoice,
O Florence, since you are so mighty,
beating your wings over sea and land,
your name spreads even through Hell itself!
Among the thieves I found five of your citizens
just like these, which brings me shame,
and brings you no great honor.
But if our dreams near dawn speak truth,
you will soon feel what Prato wishes on you,
if not worse from others.
And if it happened now, it wouldn't be too soon—
I wish it would, since it must come to pass,
for it will grieve me more as I grow older.
We turned and climbed back up the stairs
the ridges had given us to descend,
my guide leading, pulling me along.
Following the lonely path
among the rocks and crags,
our feet could not move without our hands.
I grieved then, and grieve again now
when I turn my mind to what I saw,
reining in my talent more than usual
so it won't run wild without virtue guiding it.
Whatever good star or better force
has given me this gift, may I not waste it.
Like fireflies the farmer sees
scattered through the valley below
when he rests on the hillside
at the hour when the sun
hides his face least from us,
when flies give way to gnats—
just so, the eighth ditch blazed
with countless flames
as soon as I could see down to its depths.
Like Elisha, who watched the bears avenge him,
seeing Elijah's chariot depart
as the horses rose straight up to heaven—
his eyes could follow nothing but flame alone,
like a small cloud ascending—
so each flame moved along the ditch's trench,
for none reveals what it steals away,
and every flame conceals a sinner.
I stood on the bridge, craning to see,
so intent that without gripping the rock
I would have fallen with no push at all.
My leader, seeing me so focused,
said: "The spirits are within those fires—
each wraps himself in what burns him."
"Master," I replied, "hearing you say it
makes me more certain, though I'd already guessed
and wanted to ask you:
Who burns in that flame split at the top
like fire rising from the funeral pyre
where Eteocles lay with his brother?"
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EVIL COUNSELLORS
“each wraps himself in what burns him." / "Master," I replied, "hearing you say it”
He answered: "Ulysses and Diomedes
are tormented in there together,
racing toward punishment as they once raced to war.
Within their flame they mourn
the trick of the wooden horse that opened the door
from which Rome's noble bloodline issued forth.
They weep for the deception that left
Deidamia still mourning her dead Achilles,
and they suffer for stealing the Palladium."
"If those spirits in the flames can speak,"
I said, "Master, I beg you urgently—
and let my plea count for a thousand—
don't refuse to wait here
until that twin-horned flame comes closer.
You see how I lean toward it with longing."
And he replied: "Your request deserves praise,
so I accept it.
But keep your tongue in check.
Let me do the talking—I understand
what you want to know. But they might scorn
your words, since they were Greeks."
When the flame reached the spot
where my leader judged the time was right,
I heard him speak like this:
"You who are two within one fire,
if I earned anything from you while I lived,
if I earned much or little from you
when I wrote those lofty verses in the world,
don't move on—let one of you tell us
where he went, lost, to meet his death."
The greater horn of that ancient flame
began murmuring and swaying
like a flame buffeted by wind.
Then, moving its tip back and forth
like a tongue speaking,
it cast out a voice and said:
"After I left Circe, who kept me
more than a year near Gaeta
before Aeneas gave it that name,
neither tenderness for my son,
nor duty to my aging father,
nor the love I owed Penelope
that should have made her glad
could conquer the burning in me
to experience the world
and learn of human vice and virtue.
I set out on the deep open sea
with just one ship and that small crew
who had never abandoned me.
I saw both shores as far as Spain,
as far as Morocco, and Sardinia,
and all the other islands that sea bathes.
My men and I were old and slow
when we reached that narrow strait
where Hercules set up his pillars
to warn that no man should go farther.
On my right I left Seville behind,
on my left I had already passed Ceuta.
'Brothers,' I said, 'who through a hundred thousand
dangers have reached the West,
don't deny yourselves the knowledge—
following the sun into the world without people—
that remains to this brief vigil
of our senses that is left to us.
Consider what you came from:
you weren't made to live like animals,
but to pursue virtue and knowledge.'
I made my companions so eager
with this short speech
that I could hardly have held them back.
Turning our stern toward the dawn,
we made wings of our oars
for that mad flight,
always gaining on the left side.
Night already saw all the stars
of the southern pole,
and ours hung so low
it never rose above the ocean floor.
Five times the light beneath the moon
had been rekindled and quenched again
since we entered the deep pass,
when a mountain appeared to us,
distant and dark,
higher than any I had ever seen.
We rejoiced, but joy quickly turned to grief,
for from that new land a whirlwind rose
and struck our ship's bow.
Three times it spun us around
with all the waters.
On the fourth, it lifted our stern high
and plunged our prow down deep,
as Someone willed,
until the sea closed over us again."