.

simony. Stretch’d at their length, they lie

      Along an opening in the rock. ’Midst them

      I also low shall fall, soon as he comes,

      For whom I took thee, when so hastily

      I question’d. But already longer time

      Hath past, since my soles kindled, and I thus

      Upturn’d have stood, than is his doom to stand

      Planted with fiery feet. For after him,

      One yet of deeds more ugly shall arrive,

      From forth the west, a shepherd without law,^[131]

      Fated a cover both his form and mine.

      He a new Jason^[132] shall be call’d, of whom

      In Maccabees we read; and favor such

      As to that priest his King indulgent show’d,

      Shall be of France’s monarch^[133] shown to him.”

      I know not if I here too far presumed,

      But in this strain I answer’d: “Tell me now

      What treasures from Saint Peter at the first

      Our Lord demanded, when he put the keys

      Into his charge? Surely he ask’d no more

      But ‘Follow me!’ Nor Peter,^[134] nor the rest,

      Or gold or silver of Matthias took,

      When lots were cast upon the forfeit place

      Of the condemned soul.^[135] Abide thou then;

      Thy punishment of right is merited:

      And look thou well to that ill-gotten coin,

      Which against Charles^[136] thy hardihood inspired.

      If reverence of the keys restrain’d me not,

      Which thou in happier time didst hold, I yet

      Severer speech might use. Your avarice

      O’ercasts the world with mourning, under foot

      Treading the good, and raising bad men up.

      Of shepherds like to you, the Evangelist

      Was ware, when her, who sits upon the waves,

      With kings in filthy whoredom he beheld;

      She who with seven heads tower’d at her birth,

      And from ten horns her proof of glory drew,

      Long as her spouse in virtue took delight.

      Of gold and silver ye have made your god,

      Differing wherein from the idolater,

      But that he worships one, a hundred ye?

      Ah, Constantine!^[137] to how much ill gave birth,

      Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dower,

      Which the first wealthy Father gain’d from thee.”

      Meanwhile, as thus I sung, he, whether wrath

      Or conscience smote him, violent upsprang

      Spinning on either sole. I do believe

      My teacher well was pleased, with so composed

      A lip he listen’d ever to the sound

      Of the true words I utter’d. In both arms

      He caught, and, to his bosom lifting me,

      Upward retraced the way of his descent.

      Nor weary of his weight, he press’d me close,

      Till to the summit of the rock we came,

      Our passage from the fourth to the fifth pier.

      His cherish’d burden there gently he placed

      Upon the rugged rock and steep, a path

      Not easy for the clambering goat to mount.

      Thence to my view another vale appear’d.

Canto XX

      Argument.—The Poet relates the punishment of such as presumed, while living, to predict future events. It is to have their faces reversed and set the contrary way on their limbs, so that, being deprived of the power to see before them, they are constrained ever to walk backward. Among these Virgil points out to him Amphiaraüs, Tiresias, Aruns, and Manto (from the mention of whom he takes occasion to speak of the origin of Mantua), together with several others, who had practised the arts of divination and astrology.

      And now the verse proceeds to torments new,

      Fit argument of this the twentieth strain

      Of the first song, whose awful theme records

      The spirits whelm’d in woe. Earnest I look’d

      Into the depth, that open’d to my view,

      Moisten’d with tears of anguish, and beheld

      A tribe, that came along the hollow vale,

      In silence weeping: such their step as walk

      Quires, chanting solemn litanies, on earth.

      As on them more direct mine eye descends,

      Each wonderously seem’d to be reversed

      At the neck-bone, so that the countenance

      Was from the reins averted; and because

      None might before him look, they were compell’d

      To advance with backward gait. Thus one perhaps

      Hath been by force of palsy clean transposed,

      But I ne’er saw it nor believe it so.

      Now, reader! think within thyself, so God

      Fruit of thy reading give thee! how I long

      Could keep my visage dry, when I beheld

      Near me our form distorted in such guise,

      That on the hinder parts fallen from the face

      The tears down-streaming roll’d. Against a rock

      I leant and wept, so that my guide exclaim’d:

      “What, and art thou, too, witless as the rest?

      Here pity most doth show herself alive,

      When she is dead. What guilt exceedeth his,

      Who with Heaven’s judgment in his passion strives?

      Raise up thy head, raise up, and see the man

      Before whose eyes^[138] earth gaped in Thebes, when all

      Cried out ‘Amphiaraüs, whither rushest?

      Why leavest thou the war?’ He not the less

      Fell ruining far as to Minos down,

      Whose grapple none eludes. Lo! how he makes

      The breast his shoulders; and who once too far

      Before him wish’d to see, now backward looks,

      And treads reverse his path. Tiresias note,

      Who semblance changed, when woman he became

      Of male, through every limb transform’d; and then

      Once more behoved him with his rod to strike

      The two entwining serpents, ere the plumes,

      That mark’d the better