Part 29

Even such became I at those proffered words; But shame in me his menaces produced, Which maketh servant strong before good master.

I seated me upon those monstrous shoulders; I wished to say, and yet the voice came not As I believed, “Take heed that thou embrace me.”

But he, who other times had rescued me In other peril, soon as I had mounted, Within his arms encircled and sustained me,

And said: “Now, Geryon, bestir thyself; The circles large, and the descent be little; Think of the novel burden which thou hast.”

Even as the little vessel shoves from shore, Backward, still backward, so he thence withdrew; And when he wholly felt himself afloat,

There where his breast had been he turned his tail, And that extended like an eel he moved, And with his paws drew to himself the air.

A greater fear I do not think there was What time abandoned Phaeton the reins, Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched;

Nor when the wretched Icarus his flanks Felt stripped of feathers by the melting wax, His father crying, “An ill way thou takest!”

Than was my own, when I perceived myself On all sides in the air, and saw extinguished The sight of everything but of the monster.

Onward he goeth, swimming slowly, slowly; Wheels and descends, but I perceive it only By wind upon my face and from below.

I heard already on the right the whirlpool Making a horrible crashing under us; Whence I thrust out my head with eyes cast downward.

Then was I still more fearful of the abyss; Because I fires beheld, and heard laments, Whereat I, trembling, all the closer cling.

I saw then, for before I had not seen it, The turning and descending, by great horrors That were approaching upon divers sides.

As falcon who has long been on the wing, Who, without seeing either lure or bird, Maketh the falconer say, “Ah me, thou stoopest,”

Descendeth weary, whence he started swiftly, Thorough a hundred circles, and alights Far from his master, sullen and disdainful;

Even thus did Geryon place us on the bottom, Close to the bases of the rough-hewn rock, And being disencumbered of our persons,

He sped away as arrow from the string.

Inferno: Canto XVIII

There is a place in Hell called Malebolge, Wholly of stone and of an iron colour, As is the circle that around it turns.

Right in the middle of the field malign There yawns a well exceeding wide and deep, Of which its place the structure will recount.

Round, then, is that enclosure which remains Between the well and foot of the high, hard bank, And has distinct in valleys ten its bottom.

As where for the protection of the walls Many and many moats surround the castles, The part in which they are a figure forms,

Just such an image those presented there; And as about such strongholds from their gates Unto the outer bank are little bridges,

So from the precipice’s base did crags Project, which intersected dikes and moats, Unto the well that truncates and collects them.

Within this place, down shaken from the back Of Geryon, we found us; and the Poet Held to the left, and I moved on behind.

Upon my right hand I beheld new anguish, New torments, and new wielders of the lash, Wherewith the foremost Bolgia was replete.

Down at the bottom were the sinners naked; This side the middle came they facing us, Beyond it, with us, but with greater steps;

Even as the Romans, for the mighty host, The year of Jubilee, upon the bridge, Have chosen a mode to pass the people over;