But us unto the bottom, which doth bray
Judas with Lucifer, he lightly past,
Nor stooping thus vouchsafed a long delay,
But reared aloft, as from a ship the mast.

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CANTO XXXII.

IF I had but such harsh and rugged lines,
As might befit the dismallest recess,

On which the weight of all the cliffs combines ;
Then I the juice of my conceipt would press

More largely; but because I lack this guise,
I'come to tell thereof with fearfulness.

For this is not a sportive enterprise,

To speak the universe's lowest hold,

Nor suits a tongue, that Paa and Mammy cries.
The rather may those Queens my strains uphold, 10

Who helped Amphion rounding Thebes with wall;

That fact may be akin to what is told.

O ye, most miscreated rout of all,

Ye whom the dreadful-named regions keep,

Would God you had been goats or beeves in stall! 15

As now we landed on the lightless deep,
Before the Giant's foot, far sunk below,

And I still stared upon the embrasure steep,
I heard one cry,
"Look where thou treadest so!

Take heed, and trample with thy palms no more

Thy brethren's heads in miserable woe."

I halted thereupon, and saw before

And all around my feet a lake to lie,

That form of glass, and not of water wore.
So
gross a veil was ne'er invested by

The wintry Danube out in Oesterreich,
Or Tanais furthest under freezing sky,
As this appear'd, so that of Tamberneich,

Or Pietrapâna, one should thereon hurl,

It would not nigh the margin make a 'creick.'
And as frogs croaking sit, with mouths that curl
Above the waters, whilst in slumber yet,
A-gleaning seems to go the country girl;

The starving spirits in the ice were set,

All blue as far as tinge of shame would spread; 35 Their teeth in the stork's measure still they beat.

Adown had each one cast his face and head;

Their jaws of cold, their eyes of hearty teen, The tokens in them all exhibited.

Now when I somewhat had around me seen,

40

I turned beneath, and saw there two so prest, That each by other's hair was grown between. “O ye,” said I, “that strain thus breast on breast, Who were you?" Then they bent their necks

askew,

And when their faces were to mine addrest,

Their eyes, which inly soft were hitherto,

Discharged upon their lips, and straight the cold Congealed the tears, and them enclampt anew. No rivet ever beam to beam could hold

So closely, whereat like two goats they strook Their heads together, as by rage controlled. Then one, from whom the cold had both ears shook

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Said to us, with a downcast forehead still,

Why dost among us, like thy mirror, look? To know who these were, if it be thy will,

Their father Albert's and their own domain Was where Bisenzio's waters lapse from hill.

They left one womb, and all the place of Cain

Thou mayst look through, and shalt not find a

shade,

That's worthier in candy to remain.

Not him, whose form was riven with his shade,

By one the self-same stroke of Arthur's right, Not Focacîa, not the head that's laid

So close to mine, as quite confines my sight,

And Sassol Mascheroni was his name;

If thou be Tuscan, thou wilt know the wight.

And lest thou plague me further speech to frame,

I was Camicion, of the Pazzi's race,

And wait Carlîno, to expunge my shame.”

From this I saw a thousand in the face

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65

70

From cold baboonish, whence my joints turn weak,

And ever shall, where frozen ponds I trace.

As toward the point, that all things weighty seek,

The core and centre of the world we came,

And as I trembled from the eternal bleak,

By fortune, or by fate, or my own aim,

I know not, but as through the heads I went, My foot struck hard a face among the same.

Q 2

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