Part 17

Weeping, he said to me: “If through this blind Prison thou goest by loftiness of genius, Where is my son? and why is he not with thee?”

And I to him: “I come not of myself; He who is waiting yonder leads me here, Whom in disdain perhaps your Guido had.”

His language and the mode of punishment Already unto me had read his name; On that account my answer was so full.

Up starting suddenly, he cried out: “How Saidst thou,—he had? Is he not still alive? Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?”

When he became aware of some delay, Which I before my answer made, supine He fell again, and forth appeared no more.

But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire I had remained, did not his aspect change, Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side.

“And if,” continuing his first discourse, “They have that art,” he said, “not learned aright, That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed.

But fifty times shall not rekindled be The countenance of the Lady who reigns here, Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art;

And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return, Say why that people is so pitiless Against my race in each one of its laws?”

Whence I to him: “The slaughter and great carnage Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause Such orisons in our temple to be made.”

After his head he with a sigh had shaken, “There I was not alone,” he said, “nor surely Without a cause had with the others moved.

But there I was alone, where every one Consented to the laying waste of Florence, He who defended her with open face.”

“Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,” I him entreated, “solve for me that knot, Which has entangled my conceptions here.

It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly, Beforehand whatsoe’er time brings with it, And in the present have another mode.”

“We see, like those who have imperfect sight, The things,” he said, “that distant are from us; So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.

When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain Our intellect, and if none brings it to us, Not anything know we of your human state.

Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead Will be our knowledge from the moment when The portal of the future shall be closed.”

Then I, as if compunctious for my fault, Said: “Now, then, you will tell that fallen one, That still his son is with the living joined.

And if just now, in answering, I was dumb, Tell him I did it because I was thinking Already of the error you have solved me.”

And now my Master was recalling me, Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit That he would tell me who was with him there.

He said: “With more than a thousand here I lie; Within here is the second Frederick, And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not.”

Thereon he hid himself; and I towards The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.

He moved along; and afterward thus going, He said to me, “Why art thou so bewildered?” And I in his inquiry satisfied him.

“Let memory preserve what thou hast heard Against thyself,” that Sage commanded me, “And now attend here;” and he raised his finger.

“When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold, From her thou’lt know the journey of thy life.”

Unto the left hand then he turned his feet; We left the wall, and went towards the middle, Along a path that strikes into a valley,

Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.

Inferno: Canto XI