girt the Theban walls with siege, and held,
As still he seems to hold, God in disdain,
And sets his high omnipotence at nought.
But, as I told him, his despiteful mood
Is ornament well suits the breast that wears it.
Follow me now; and look thou set not yet
Thy foot in the hot sand, but to the wood
Keep ever close.” Silently on we pass’d
To where there gushes from the forest’s bound
A little brook, whose crimson’d wave yet lifts
My hair with horror. As the rill, that runs
From Bulicame,1 to be portion’d out
Among the sinful women; so ran this
Down through the sand, its bottom and each bank
Stone-built, and either margin at its side,
Whereon I straight perceiv’d our passage lay.
“Of all that I have shown thee, since that gate
We enter’d first, whose threshold is to none
Denied, nought else so worthy of regard,
As is this river, has thine eye discern’d,
O’er which the flaming volley all is quench’d.”
So spake my guide; and I him thence besought,
That having giv’n me appetite to know,
The food he too would give, that hunger crav’d.
“In midst of ocean,” forthwith he began,
“A desolate country lies, which Crete is nam’d,
Under whose monarch in old times the world
Liv’d pure and chaste. A mountain rises there,
Call’d Ida, joyous once with leaves and streams,
Deserted now like a forbidden thing.
It was the spot which Rhea, Saturn’s spouse,
Chose for the secret cradle of her son;
And better to conceal him, drown’d in shouts
His infant cries. Within the mount, upright
An ancient form there stands and huge, that turns
His shoulders towards Damiata, and at Rome
As in his mirror looks. Of finest gold
His head is shap’d, pure silver are the breast
And arms; thence to the middle is of brass.
And downward all beneath well-temper’d steel,
Save the right foot of potter’s clay, on which
Than on the other more erect he stands,
Each part except the gold, is rent throughout;
And from the fissure tears distil, which join’d
Penetrate to that cave. They in their course
Thus far precipitated down the rock
Form Acheron, and Styx, and Phlegethon;
Then by this straiten’d channel passing hence
Beneath, e’en to the lowest depth of all,
Form there Cocytus, of whose lake (thyself
Shall see it) I here give thee no account.”
Then I to him: “If from our world this sluice
Be thus deriv’d; wherefore to us but now
Appears it at this edge?” He straight replied:
“The place, thou know’st, is round; and though great part
Thou have already pass’d, still to the left
Descending to the nethermost, not yet
Hast thou the circuit made of the whole orb.
Wherefore if aught of new to us appear,
It needs not bring up wonder in thy looks.”
Then I again inquir’d: “Where flow the streams
Of Phlegethon and Lethe? for of one
Thou tell’st not, and the other of that shower,
Thou say’st, is form’d.” He answer thus return’d:
“Doubtless thy questions all well pleas’d I hear.
Yet the red seething wave2 might have resolv’d
One thou proposest. Lethe thou shalt see,
But not within this hollow, in the place,
Whither3 to lave themselves the spirits go,
Whose blame hath been by penitence remov’d.”
He added: “Time is now we quit the wood.
Look thou my steps pursue: the margins give
Safe passage, unimpeded by the flames;
For over them all vapour is extinct.”
Footnotes
1 A warm medicinal spring near Viterbo; the waters of which, as Landino and Vellutelli affirm, passed by a place of ill-fame. Venturi conjectures that Dante would imply that it was the scene of licentious merriment among those who frequented its baths.
2 Phlegethon.
3 The other side of Purgatory.
Canto XV
ARGUMENT.—Taking their way upon one of the mounds by which the streamlet, spoken of in the last Canto, was embanked, and having gone so far that they could no longer have discerned the forest if they had turned round to look for it, they meet a troop of spirits that come along the sand by the side of the pier. These are they who have done violence to Nature; and among them Dante distinguishes Brunetto Latini, who had been formerly his master; with whom, turning a little backward, he holds a discourse which occupies the remainder of this Canto.
One of the solid margins bears us now
Envelop’d in the mist, that from the stream
Arising, hovers o’er, and saves from fire
Both piers and water. As the Flemings rear
Their mound, ’twixt Ghent and Bruges, to chase back
The ocean, fearing his tumultuous tide
That drives toward them, or the Paduans theirs
Along the Brenta, to defend their towns
And castles, ere the genial warmth be felt