Simoniacs, Pope Nicholas III
O Simon Magus! O miserable lot
Who take the things of God that ought to be
Wedded to goodness and in your greediness
Adulterate them into gold and silver!
5 Now the trumpet blast must sound for you
Since you are stashed here into the third pocket.
We had arrived at the next graveyard
By climbing to that section of the ridgetop
Which juts right over the middle of the ditch.
10 O highest Wisdom, how great is the art
You show in heaven, earth, and this bad world!
And how just is the power of your judgment!
I saw along the sides and on the bottom
The livid rockface all pocked full of holes,
15 Each one alike in size and rounded shape.
No smaller or no larger they seemed to me
Than are those booths for the baptismal fonts
Built in my beautiful San Giovanni —
And one of those, not many years ago,
20 I broke up to save someone drowning in it:
And let my word here disabuse men’s minds —
Up from the mouth of each hole there stuck out
A sinner’s feet and legs up to the calf,
The rest of him remained stuffed down inside.
25 The soles of both feet blazed all on fire;
The leg-joints wriggled uncontrollably:
They would have snapped any rope or tether.
Just as a flame on anything that’s oily
Spreads only on the object’s outer surface,
30 So did this fire move from heel to toe.
"Who is that sinner, master, who suffers so,
Writhing more than any of his comrades,"
I asked, "the one the redder flame licks dry?"
And he: "If you want to be lifted down
35 Onto that sloping lower bank, then from him
You’ll learn about himself and his wrongdoings."
And I: "My pleasure is what pleases you.
You are my lord, and you know I won’t swerve
From your will: You know what is left unspoken."
40 Coming to the fourth causeway, we then turned
And, bearing to the left, still descended
Down to the strait and perforated bottom.
And my kind master did not put me down
From his side till he’d brought me to the hole
45 Of the sinner who shed tears with his shanks.
"O whatever you are, sorrowful soul,
Planted like a stake with your top downward,"
I started out, "say something, if you can."
I stood there like a friar hearing confession
50 From a foul assassin who, once fixed in place,
To delay execution calls him back again.
And he cried, "Are you already standing there,
Are you already standing there, Boniface?
By several years the record lied to me!
55 "Are you so quickly glutted with the wealth
Which did not make you fear to take by guile
The lovely lady and then lay her waste?"
I acted like a person who’s left standing —
Not comprehending what’s been said to him —
60 Half-mocked and at a loss to make an answer.
Then Virgil spoke up, "Tell him right away,
‘I am not he, I’m not the one you think!’ "
And I replied as I had been instructed.
At this the spirit twisted both feet wildly;
65 Then, sighing deeply, with a voice in tears,
He asked, "What, then, do you demand of me?
"If to know who I am has so compelled you
That you continued down this bank, then know
Once I was vested in the papal mantle,
70 "And truly I was a son of the she-bear,
So avid to advance my cubs that up there
I pocketed the money and here, myself.
"Under my head have been dragged the others
Who went, by way of simony, before me,
75 Squashed flat in the fissures of the stone.
"I shall plunge down there, in my turn, when
The one I took you for — while thrusting at you
That question so abruptly — will arrive here.
"But a longer time now have I baked my feet
80 And stood like this upside-down than he
Will stay planted with his red-hot feet up!
"For after him will come one fouler in deeds,
A lawless shepherd from the westward land,
One fit to cover up both him and me.
85 "He’ll be a new Jason, like him we read of
In Maccabees; just as Jason’s king was kind,
So shall the king of France be kind to him."
I do not know if now I grew too brash,
But I replied to him in the same measure,
90 "Well, then, tell me: how costly was the treasure
"That our Lord demanded of Saint Peter
Before he gave the keys into his keeping?
Surely he said only ‘Follow me.’
"Nor did Peter or the rest take gold
95 Or silver from Matthias when they chose him
By lot to take the place the traitor lost.
"Stay put, therefore, since you are justly punished,
And guard with care the ill-acquired money
That made you so high-handed against Charles.
100 "And were it not that I as yet feel bound
By my deep reverence for the mighty keys
Which you once held in the lighthearted life,
"I would here utter words still far more bitter,
Because your avarice afflicts the world,
105 Trampling good men and vaulting evildoers.
"You are the shepherds the evangelist meant
When he saw ‘she who sits upon the waters’
Fornicating with the kings of earth.
"She is the one born with the seven heads
110 Who from her ten horns begot all her strength
So long as virtue was her bridegroom’s pleasure.
"A god of gold and silver you have fashioned!
How do you differ from idolators
Except they worship one god — you a hundred?
115 "Ah, Constantine, how much foul harm was fostered,
Not by your conversion but by the dowry
Which the first wealthy father took from you?"
And while I chanted him these notes — whether
Bitten by his anger or his conscience —
120 He gave a vicious kick with his two feet.
I honestly believe my guide was pleased,
So contented was his look while he kept listening
To the sound of these true-spoken words.
At that he took me within both his arms
125 And, when he held me wholly to his breast,
Climbed up the path that he had once come down.
Nor did he weary of clasping me to himself,
But carried me to the crest of the arch
That crosses from the fourth to the fifth causeway.
130 Here he gently set down his heavy load,
Gently because of the steep and craggy ridge
Which even goats would have found hard to pass.
From there another valley opened before me.
