CANTO XXVIII

The Divine Comedy - Inferno

by Dante Alighieri

Translated by Charles Eliot Norton

CANTO XXVIII, THE DIVINE COMEDY - INFERNO by Alighieri Dante
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Eighth Circle: ninth pit: sowers of discord and
schism. --Mahomet and Ali.--Fra Dolcino.--Pier da Medicina.
-Curio.--Mosca.--Bertrau de Born.

Who, even with words unfettered,[1] could ever tell in full of
the blood and of the wounds that I now saw, though many times
narrating? Every tongue assuredly would come short, by reason of
our speech and our memory that have small capacity to comprise so
much.

[1] In prose.


If all the people were again assembled, that of old upon
the fateful land of Apulia lamented for their blood shed by the
Trojans,[1] and in the long war that made such high spoil of the
rings,[2] as Livy writes, who erreth not; with those that, by
resisting Robert Guiscard,[3] felt the pain of blows, and the
rest whose bones are still heaped up at Ceperano,[4] where every
Apullan was false, and there by Tagliacozzo,[5] where without
arms the old Alardo conquered,--and one should show his limb
pierced through, and one his lopped off, it would be nothing to
equal the grisly mode of the ninth pit.

[1] The Romans, descendants of the Trojans.

[2] The spoils of the battle of Canon, in the second Punic War.

[3] The Norman conqueror and Duke of Apulia. He died in 1085.

[4] Where, in 1266, the leaders of the army of Manfred, King of
Apulia and Sicily, treacherously went over to Charles of Anjou.

[5] Here, in 1265, Conradin, the nephew of Manfred, was defeated
and taken prisoner. The victory was won by a stratagem devised by
Count Erard de Valery.


Truly cask, by losing mid-board or cross-piece, is not so split
open as one I saw cleft from the chin to where the wind is
broken: between his legs were hanging his entrails, his
inner parts were visible, and the dismal sack that makes ordure
of what is swallowed. Whilst all on seeing him I fix myself, he
looked at me, and with his hands opened his breast, saying, "Now
see how I rend myself, see how mangled is Mahomet. Ali [1] goeth
before me weeping, cleft in the face from chin to forelock; and
all the others whom thou seest here were, when living, sowers of
scandal and of schism, and therefore are they so cleft. A devil
is here behind, that adjusts us so cruelly, putting again to the
edge of the sword each of this crew, when we have turned the
doleful road, because the wounds are closed up ere one passes
again before him. But thou, who art thou, that musest on the
crag, perchance to delay going to the punishment that is adjudged
on thine own accusations?" [2] "Nor death hath reached him yet,"
replied my Master, "nor doth sin lead him to torment him; but, in
order to give him full experience, it behoves me, who am dead, to
lead him through Hell down here, from circle to circle; and this
is true as that I speak to thee."

[1] Cousin and son-in-law of Mahomet, and himself the head of a
schism.

[1] When the soul appears before Minos, every sin is confessed.
See Canto V.


More than a hundred there were that, when they heard him, stopped
in the ditch to look at me, forgetting the torment in their
wonder. "Now, say to Fra Dolcino,[1] then, thou who perchance
shalt shortly see the sun, if he wish not soon to follow me here,
so to arm himself with supplies that stress of snow bring not the
victory to the Novarese, which otherwise to gain would not be
easy:--after he had lifted one foot to go on Mahomet said to me
these words, then on the ground he stretched it to depart.

[1] A noted heretic and reformer, who for two years maintained
himself in Lombardy against the forces of the Pope, but finally,
being reduced by famine in time of snow, in 18O7, was taken
captive and burnt at Novara.


Another who had his throat pierced and his nose cut off up under
his brows, and had but one ear only, having stopped to look in
wonder with the rest, before the rest opened his gullet, which
outwardly was all crimson, and said, "O thou whom sin condemns
not, and whom of old I saw above in the Latian land, if too great
resemblance deceive me not, remember Pier da Medicina [1] if ever
thou return to see the sweet plain that from Vercelli slopes to
Marcabb, and make known to the two best of Fano, to Messer Guido
and likewise to Angiolello,[2] that, if foresight here be not
vain, they will be cast forth from their vessel and drowned near
to the Cattolica, by treachery of a fell tyrant. Between the
islands of Cyprus and Majorca Neptune never saw so great a crime,
not of the pirates, nor of the Argolic people. That traitor who
sees only with one eye, and holds the city from sight of which
one who is here with me would fain have fasted,[3] will make them
come to parley with him; then will act so that against the wind
of Focara[4] they will not need or vow or prayer." And I to him,
"Show to me and declare, if thou wishest that I carry up news of
thee, who is he of the bitter sight?"[5] Then he put his hand on
the jaw of one of his companions, and opened the mouth of him,
crying, "This is he, and he speaks not; this outcast stifled the
doubt in Caesar, by affirming that the man prepared always
suffered harm from delay." Oh, how dismayed, with his tongue slit
in his gorge, seemed to me Curio,[6] who in speech had been so
hardy!

[1] Medicina is a town in the Bolognese district. Piero was a
fosterer of discord.

[2] Guido del Cassero and Angiolello da Cagnano, treacherously
drowned by order of the one-eyed Malatestino, lord of Rimini.

[3] The city of Rimini, which Curio would wish never to have
seen.

[4] A high foreland near the Cattolica, between Rimini and Fano,
whence often fell dangerous squalls.

[5] He to whom the sight of Rimini had been bitter.

[6] Curio the Tribune, banished from Rome, fled to Caesar
delaying to cross the Rubicon, and urged him on, with the
argument, according to Lucan, "Tolle moras, semper nocuit
differre paratis." Phars. i. 281.


And one who had both hands lopped off, lifting the stumps through
the murky air so that the blood made his face foul, cried out,
"Thou shalt remember Mosca,[1] too, who said, alas! 'Thing done
has an end,' which was the seed of ill for the Tuscan people."
And I added thereto, "And death to thine own race." Whereat he,
accumulating woe on woe, went away like a person sad and
distracted.

[1] In 1215 one of the Buondelmonti, plighted to a maiden of the
Amidei, broke faith, and engaged himself to a damsel of the
Donati. The family of the girl who had been thus slighted took
counsel how to avenge the affront, and Mosca de' Lamberti gave
the ill advice to murder the young Buondelmonte. The murder was
the beginning of long woe to Florence, and of the division of her
people into Guelphs and Ghibellines.


But I remained to look at the crowd, and I saw a thing that I
should be afraid, without more proof, only to tell, were it not
that conscience reassures me, the good companion that emboldens
man under the hauberk of feeling himself pure. I saw in truth,
and still I seent to see it, a trunk without a head going along
even as the others of the dismal flock were going. And it was
holding the cut-off head by its hair, dangling in hand like a
lantern. And it gazed on us, and said, "O me!" Of itself it was
making for itself a lamp; and they were two in one, and one in
two. How it can be He knows who so ordains. When it was right at
the foot of the bridge, it lifted its arm high with the whole
head, in order to approach its words to us, which were, "Now see
the dire punishment, thou that, breathing, goest seeing the dead:
see thou if any other is great as this! And that thou mayest
carry news of me, know that I am Bertran de Born,[1] he that gave
to the young king the ill encouragements. I made father and son
rebellious to each other. Ahithophel did not more with Absalom
and with David by his wicked goadings. Because I divided
persons so united, I bear my brain, alas! divided from its source
which is in this trunk. Thus retaliation is observed in me.

[1] The famous troubadour who incited the young Prince Henry to
rebellion against his father, Henry II. of England. The prince
died in 1183.