Inferno
The Ninth Bolgia: Schismatics. Mahomet and Ali. Pier da Medicina, Curio, Mosca, and Bertrand de Born. Who ever could, e'en with untrammelled words, Tell of the blood and of the wounds
Who could ever tell,
even with words set free,
of all the blood and wounds
How could I ever tell in full what I witnessed there,
even by telling it a thousand times over?
Every tongue would surely fail,
our speech and memory too small
to hold such vastness.
If all the people who once shed their blood
on Puglia's cursed ground could be gathered—
those who died under Roman swords
and in that endless war
that left such piles of rings as spoils,
as Livy recorded without error,
along with those who suffered agonizing wounds
fighting against Robert Guiscard,
and all the rest whose bones still lie
at Ceperano, where every Apulian turned traitor,
and at Tagliacozzo, where old Alardo won without weapons—
if one showed a limb pierced through, another lopped off,
it would be nothing compared
to the disgusting horrors of the ninth pit.
Never was a wine cask so completely shattered
by losing its center plank or side board
as I saw one soul split open
from chin down to where he breaks wind.
His entrails hung between his legs,
his heart visible, and that wretched sack
that turns what we eat into excrement.
While I stared at him in complete absorption,
he looked at me and with his hands
tore open his chest, saying:
"See how I rend myself!
See how mutilated Mohammed is!
Ali walks weeping before me,
his face split from hairline to chin.
All the others you see here
were sowers of scandal and schism while alive,
and so they are cleft like this.
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SCHISMATICS—MAHOMET
“that turns what we eat into excrement. / While I stared at him in complete absorption,”
Behind us stalks a devil who cuts us
with cruel precision, putting each one
of our company back to his sword's edge
when we complete the sorrowful circuit,
because our wounds heal again
before we pass in front of him once more.
But who are you, standing there on the ridge?
Perhaps delaying your descent
to the punishment decreed for your sins?"
My master replied: "Death has not yet reached him,
nor does guilt bring him here to be tormented.
To give him complete knowledge,
I, who am dead, must lead him
down through Hell from circle to circle.
This is as true as my speaking to you."
More than a hundred souls stopped still in the ditch
when they heard this, staring at me
in amazement, forgetting their torture.
"Tell Fra Dolcino, then—you who may see the sun again soon—
to arm himself with provisions
if he doesn't want to follow me here quickly.
Otherwise the snow will give victory to the Novarese,
which would not be easy to achieve by force alone."
After lifting one foot to leave,
Mohammed spoke these words to me,
then stretched it to the ground and departed.
Another soul, his throat pierced through,
nose cut off just below the eyebrows,
with only one ear remaining,
stopped to stare in wonder with the others.
Before the rest, he opened his gullet—
red all over on the outside—and said:
"O you whom guilt does not condemn,
I once saw you in the land of Italy,
unless great resemblance deceives me.
Remember Pier da Medicina
if you ever see again that lovely plain
sloping from Vercelli to Marcabò.
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SOWER OF DISCORD
“I once saw you in the land of Italy,”
Make it known to Fano's two finest men,
Messer Guido and Angiolello,
that unless our foresight here is worthless,
they will be thrown from their ship
and drowned near Cattolica
by a fell tyrant's betrayal.
Between Cyprus and Majorca
Neptune never witnessed so great a crime,
not from pirates or Greek peoples.
That traitor who sees with only one eye
and rules the city that someone here with me
would rather have never laid eyes upon
will summon them to parley,
then act so that they'll need
no vows or prayers to Focara's wind."
I said to him: "Show me and tell me,
if you want me to carry news of you above,
who is this one with the bitter vision?"
Then he placed his hand on the jaw
of one of his companions and opened his mouth,
crying: "This is the one—he cannot speak.
This man, in exile, drowned every doubt in Caesar,
insisting that the prepared man
always suffers from delay."
How bewildered Curio appeared to me,
his tongue split in his severed throat—
he who had been so bold in speech!
Another, both hands cut off,
raised the stumps through the murky air
so that blood made his face horrible,
and cried: "Remember Mosca too,
who said—alas!—'What's done is done!'
That phrase was poisonous seed for the Tuscan people."
"And death to your family line," I added.
Then he, piling grief upon grief,
went off like someone mad with sorrow.
But I stayed to watch the crowd
and saw something I would fear to tell
without more proof,
except that conscience reassures me—
that good companion that gives man courage
beneath the armor of its pure intention.
I truly saw, and seem to see it still:
a headless trunk walking
like the others in that wretched herd.
It held the severed head by the hair,
dangling from its hand like a lantern,
and the head gazed at us and said: "Oh me!"
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BERTRAM DE BORN
“a headless trunk walking / like the others in that wretched herd. / It held the severed head by the hair,”
It made itself into its own light—
two in one, and one in two.
How this can be, only He who ordains it knows.
When it reached the bridge's foot,
it raised its arm high with the head
to bring its words closer to us:
"See now this grievous punishment,
you who walk breathing among the dead!
See if any suffering equals this.
So that you may carry news of me,
know that I am Bertran de Born,
who gave evil counsel to the Young King.
I made father and son rebel against each other.
Achitophel did no more with his cursed goading
between Absalom and David.
Because I severed people so united,
I now carry my brain severed—alas!—
from its source in this trunk.
Thus the law of retribution is fulfilled in me."