Part 24

“In all the rest which I have shown to thee Since we have entered in within the gate Whose threshold unto no one is denied,

Nothing has been discovered by thine eyes So notable as is the present river, Which all the little flames above it quenches.”

These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him That he would give me largess of the food, For which he had given me largess of desire.

“In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,” Said he thereafterward, “whose name is Crete, Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

There is a mountain there, that once was glad With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida; Now ’tis deserted, as a thing worn out.

Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle Of her own son; and to conceal him better, Whene’er he cried, she there had clamours made.

A grand old man stands in the mount erect, Who holds his shoulders turned tow’rds Damietta, And looks at Rome as if it were his mirror.

His head is fashioned of refined gold, And of pure silver are the arms and breast; Then he is brass as far down as the fork.

From that point downward all is chosen iron, Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay, And more he stands on that than on the other.

Each part, except the gold, is by a fissure Asunder cleft, that dripping is with tears, Which gathered together perforate that cavern.

From rock to rock they fall into this valley; Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon they form; Then downward go along this narrow sluice

Unto that point where is no more descending. They form Cocytus; what that pool may be Thou shalt behold, so here ’tis not narrated.”

And I to him: “If so the present runnel Doth take its rise in this way from our world, Why only on this verge appears it to us?”

And he to me: “Thou knowest the place is round, And notwithstanding thou hast journeyed far, Still to the left descending to the bottom,

Thou hast not yet through all the circle turned. Therefore if something new appear to us, It should not bring amazement to thy face.”

And I again: “Master, where shall be found Lethe and Phlegethon, for of one thou’rt silent, And sayest the other of this rain is made?”

“In all thy questions truly thou dost please me,” Replied he; “but the boiling of the red Water might well solve one of them thou makest.

Thou shalt see Lethe, but outside this moat, There where the souls repair to lave themselves, When sin repented of has been removed.”

Then said he: “It is time now to abandon The wood; take heed that thou come after me; A way the margins make that are not burning,

And over them all vapours are extinguished.”

Inferno: Canto XV

Now bears us onward one of the hard margins, And so the brooklet’s mist o’ershadows it, From fire it saves the water and the dikes.

Even as the Flemings, ’twixt Cadsand and Bruges, Fearing the flood that tow’rds them hurls itself, Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight;

And as the Paduans along the Brenta, To guard their villas and their villages, Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat;

In such similitude had those been made, Albeit not so lofty nor so thick, Whoever he might be, the master made them.

Now were we from the forest so remote, I could not have discovered where it was, Even if backward I had turned myself,

When we a company of souls encountered, Who came beside the dike, and every one Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont

To eye each other under a new moon, And so towards us sharpened they their brows As an old tailor at the needle’s eye.