Part 45

‘O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand Perils,’ I said, ‘have come unto the West, To this so inconsiderable vigil

Which is remaining of your senses still Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge, Following the sun, of the unpeopled world.

Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang; Ye were not made to live like unto brutes, But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.’

So eager did I render my companions, With this brief exhortation, for the voyage, That then I hardly could have held them back.

And having turned our stern unto the morning, We of the oars made wings for our mad flight, Evermore gaining on the larboard side.

Already all the stars of the other pole The night beheld, and ours so very low It did not rise above the ocean floor.

Five times rekindled and as many quenched Had been the splendour underneath the moon, Since we had entered into the deep pass,

When there appeared to us a mountain, dim From distance, and it seemed to me so high As I had never any one beheld.

Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping; For out of the new land a whirlwind rose, And smote upon the fore part of the ship.

Three times it made her whirl with all the waters, At the fourth time it made the stern uplift, And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,

Until the sea above us closed again.”

Inferno: Canto XXVII

Already was the flame erect and quiet, To speak no more, and now departed from us With the permission of the gentle Poet;

When yet another, which behind it came, Caused us to turn our eyes upon its top By a confused sound that issued from it.

As the Sicilian bull (that bellowed first With the lament of him, and that was right, Who with his file had modulated it)

Bellowed so with the voice of the afflicted, That, notwithstanding it was made of brass, Still it appeared with agony transfixed;

Thus, by not having any way or issue At first from out the fire, to its own language Converted were the melancholy words.

But afterwards, when they had gathered way Up through the point, giving it that vibration The tongue had given them in their passage out,

We heard it said: “O thou, at whom I aim My voice, and who but now wast speaking Lombard, Saying, ‘Now go thy way, no more I urge thee,’

Because I come perchance a little late, To stay and speak with me let it not irk thee; Thou seest it irks not me, and I am burning.

If thou but lately into this blind world Hast fallen down from that sweet Latian land, Wherefrom I bring the whole of my transgression,

Say, if the Romagnuols have peace or war, For I was from the mountains there between Urbino and the yoke whence Tiber bursts.”

I still was downward bent and listening, When my Conductor touched me on the side, Saying: “Speak thou: this one a Latian is.”

And I, who had beforehand my reply In readiness, forthwith began to speak: “O soul, that down below there art concealed,

Romagna thine is not and never has been Without war in the bosom of its tyrants; But open war I none have left there now.

Ravenna stands as it long years has stood; The Eagle of Polenta there is brooding, So that she covers Cervia with her vans.

The city which once made the long resistance, And of the French a sanguinary heap, Beneath the Green Paws finds itself again;

Verrucchio’s ancient Mastiff and the new, Who made such bad disposal of Montagna, Where they are wont make wimbles of their teeth.