Inferno
Fourth Division of the Ninth Circle, the Judecca: Traitors to their Lords and Benefactors. Lucifer. Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. The Centre of the Universe. The Ascent.
"The banners of the King of Hell advance
toward us—so look ahead,"
"Look there, ahead of you," my Master said, "see if you can make him out."
Like a windmill turning in the distance
when heavy fog rolls in
or when our half of the world grows dark with night—
that's how the structure looked to me.
I pulled myself behind my Guide to shelter from the wind,
for there was nowhere else to hide.
Now I was there—and I write this with fear trembling in my words—
where the shades were completely encased,
showing through the ice like straws trapped in glass.
Some lay flat, others stood upright,
some head up, some feet up,
others bent like bows, faces curved down to meet their feet.
When we had walked far enough forward
that my Master was ready to show me
the creature who once possessed perfect beauty,
he stepped aside and made me stop,
saying: "Look—Dis. And this is the place
where you must arm yourself with courage."
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THE JUDECCA—LUCIFER
“saying: "Look—Dis. And this is the place / where you must arm yourself with courage."”
How frozen and powerless I became then—
don't ask me, Reader, for I won't write it down.
All words would fail.
I did not die, yet I was not alive.
Think for yourself, if you have any wisdom,
what I became, stripped of both life and death.
The Emperor of the sorrowful kingdom
rose from the ice at mid-chest.
I would compare better with a giant
than giants would compare with his arms alone.
Consider how massive the whole must be
that matches such proportions.
If he was once as beautiful as he is now hideous,
and still he raised his face against his Maker,
then truly all suffering flows from him.
What a wonder it seemed to me
when I saw three faces on his head!
The one in front was crimson red.
Two others joined it
above the middle of each shoulder,
meeting together at the crown.
The right face seemed somewhere between white and yellow.
The left was the color of those
who come from where the Nile descends through valleys.
Beneath each face emerged two enormous wings,
fitting for such a mighty bird—
I never saw such massive sails upon the sea.
They had no feathers, but were fashioned
like a bat's wings, and he beat them
so that three winds rushed forth.
This froze all of Cocytus solid.
With six eyes he wept, and down three chins
tears and bloody foam trickled.
In each mouth he crushed a sinner with his teeth,
grinding like a mill,
tormenting all three at once.
For the one in front, the biting was nothing
compared to the clawing—sometimes
his back was completely stripped of skin.
"That soul up there suffering the greatest pain,"
the Master said, "is Judas Iscariot.
His head inside, he kicks his legs without.
Of the other two hanging head down,
the one from the black jaw is Brutus—
see how he writhes and speaks no word.
The other, who looks so strong, is Cassius.
But night is rising again, and it's time
we leave, for we have seen everything."
When he thought it right, I wrapped my arms around his neck.
He watched for the perfect moment,
and when the wings spread wide apart,
he grabbed hold of the shaggy flanks.
From tuft to tuft he climbed downward
between the matted hair and frozen crust.
When we reached the point where the thigh turns
exactly at the thickness of the hip,
my Guide, laboring with difficult breath,
turned his head where his feet had been
and grasped the hair like someone climbing up—
so that I thought we were heading back to Hell.
"Hold tight," the Master said, panting like one exhausted,
"for by stairs like these
we must escape from so much evil."
Then he emerged through a rock's opening
and set me down upon the edge.
He stepped carefully toward me.
I lifted my eyes, expecting to see
Lucifer the same way I had left him,
but I saw him holding his legs upward.
If I became confused then,
let dull people judge who cannot see
what point it was that I had passed.
"Get up," the Master said, "stand on your feet.
The way is long and the road difficult,
and already the sun returns to mid-morning."
Where we stood was no palace hall
but a natural cavern
with uneven floor and little light.
"Before I tear myself from the abyss,
my Master," I said when I had risen,
"speak a little to clear up my confusion.
Where is the ice? And how is he fixed
upside down like this? And how in such short time
has the sun traveled from evening to morning?"
And he answered: "You still imagine
you're on the other side of the center, where I grasped
the hair of the evil worm who pierces the world.
You were on that side as long as I descended.
When I turned around, you passed the point
toward which all heavy things are drawn,
and now you've come beneath the hemisphere
opposite the one that covers the great
dry land, under whose summit was killed
the Man who was born and lived without sin.
Your feet rest on the small sphere
that forms the other face of Judecca.
Here it is morning when it's evening there.
And he whose hair made us a ladder
remains fixed just as he was before.
On this side he fell from heaven,
and all the land that once emerged here
made itself a veil of sea in fear of him
and came to our hemisphere. And perhaps
to flee from him, the land that appears on this side
left this place empty and rushed back up."
There is a place below, as far from Beelzebub
as the tomb extends,
known not by sight but by the sound
of a small stream that descends there
through a channel in the rock it has carved
with its winding, gently sloping course.
My Guide and I entered that hidden passage
to return to the bright world.
Without pausing for any rest
we climbed up, he first and I second,
until through a round opening I glimpsed
some of the beautiful things that Heaven holds.
Then we emerged to see the stars again.
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THE WAY TO THE UPPER WORLD
“My Guide and I entered that hidden passage / to return to the bright world.”
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THE POETS EMERGE FROM HELL
“Then we emerged to see the stars again.”