Canto XXIV (Inferno)
Thieves, Vanni Fucci
When in that season of the youthful year
The sun warms his rays beneath Aquarius,
And soon the nights shall meet the days halfway,
When the hoarfrost paints upon the ground
5 The perfect picture of his pure white sister
(But pigment from his brush soon vanishes),
The peasant, short on fodder for his sheep,
Wakes up and looks out and sees the fields
All blanketed in white: he smacks his thigh,
10 Turns back indoors and walking up and down,
Frets like a wretch not knowing what to do;
Out he comes once more, and hope revives
When he sees the world has changed its face
In so brief a time, and he takes up his staff
15 To drive his sheep outside to the green pasture:
Just so I felt such deep dismay to see
My master’s brow grown pale with some new trouble
And as quickly came the gauze to heal the hurt.
For as soon as we approached the shattered bridge
20 My escort turned to me that same sweet look
Which I’d first seen at the foot of the mountain.
He opened wide his arms — once he had closely
Studied the wreckage and come to some resolve
Within himself — then he took hold of me.
25 And just like one who works and thinks things out,
Who is always ready for what lies ahead,
So he, lifting me toward the dome of one
Huge boulder, spied another crag above
And said, "Now clamber onto that: but first
30 Try it out to see if it will hold you."
It was no path for those clothed in their cloaks!
For we could hardly — he, light, and I, with help —
Handhold by handhold, scale the jutting rocks.
And had it not been that, down from that rampart,
35 The slope of one bank was lower than the other,
I cannot speak for him, but I’d be beaten.
But because Malebolge all falls away
Toward the open mouth of the lowest well,
The layout of each valley predetermined
40 That as one bank rises, the next tapers off.
And so we reached, at last, the point on top
Where the last stone of the bridge fell broken.
The breath was so pumped out of my lungs
When I climbed aloft, I could not go onward,
45 And as soon as I’d come up there I sat down.
"Now you must shake off all your laziness,"
My master said, "for loungers and slugabeds
Will never reach the heights of lasting fame:
"Without fame a man wears away his life,
50 Leaving such traces of himself on earth
As smoke on air or foam upon the water.
"Straighten up! Conquer your fatigue
With the spirit that wins every battle
Unless it sink under the body’s weight.
55 "Longer stairs than these wait to be climbed!
It is not enough to leave these souls behind:
If you have understood my words, act on them!"
I stood up then, showing that I was better
Supplied with wind than I had been before,
60 And said, "Go on, for I am strong and ready."
We picked our way along the curving ridge
Which was more jagged, narrower and harder,
And so much steeper than the ridge before.
Not to seem weak, I talked as I pushed on;
65 Then, from the next ditch there arose a voice
That seemed incapable of forming words.
I don’t know what he said, though now I stood
On the crown of the arch that crosses there,
But whoever spoke appeared to be running.
70 I had bent over, yet my living eyes
Could not pierce through the darkness to the bottom;
So I said, "Master, kindly manage to reach
"The next ring, and let us climb down the wall:
From here I cannot grasp what I am hearing,
75 And I see down but I can make out nothing."
"No other answer," he said, "shall I give you
Than doing it, because a fit request
Should in silence be followed by the deed."
We climbed down where the bridgehead ended
80 And where it merged with the eighth embankment,
And then its pocket opened up to me:
And there within I saw a repulsive mass
Of serpents in such a horrifying state
That still my blood runs cold when I recall them.
85 No more need Libya boast about the sands
Where chelydri, jaculi, phareae,
And cenchres with amphisbaena breed:
She could not show — with all Ethiopia
Nor the lands that lie surrounding the Red Sea —
90 So rampant and pestiferous a plague.
Among this cruel and miserable swarm
Were people running stripped and terrified,
With no hope of hiding-hole or heliotrope.
They had hands tied behind their backs by snakes
95 That thrust out head and tail through their loins
And that coiled then in knots around the front.
And look! A serpent sprang up at one sinner
Upon our strand and it transfixed him there
Where neck and shoulders knotted at the nape.
100 No o or i was ever written faster
Than that sinner flared up and burst in flames
And, falling down, completely turned to ashes.
And then, as he lay scattered on the ground,
The ashy dust collected by itself
105 And suddenly returned to its first shape.
Just so, men of high learning have avowed
That the phoenix dies and is then reborn
When it approaches its five-hundredth year;
In life it does not feed on grass or grain,
110 But only on the tears of balm and incense,
And its last winding-sheet is nard and myrrh.
As one who falls in a fit, not knowing how —
By devilish force that drags him to the ground
Or by some other blockage that binds a man —
115 When he lifts himself up, and looks around,
All out of focus with the heavy anguish
He has suffered, sighing as he stares:
Such was this sinner after he arose.
O power of God, what great severity
120 To have poured down such blows in its vengeance!
My guide then asked the sinner who he was,
And he replied to this, "Not long ago
I rained from Tuscany down to this hellmouth.
"Bestial life and not the human pleased me,
125 Like the mule I was; I am Vanni Fucci,
Beast, and Pistoia was a fit den for me."
I said to my guide, "Tell him not to slink
Away, and ask him what crime cast him here,
For I knew him as a man of blood and tantrums."
130 The sinner, who understood, made no evasions
But turned his mind and face straight toward me
And reddened with distressful shame, then said,
"It grieves me more that you have found me out
Amid the wretchedness in which you see me
135 Than when I was taken from the other life.
"I am not able to refuse your asking.
I am set down so far because I robbed
The sacristy of its splendid treasure,
"And later someone else was falsely blamed.
140 But, that you may not revel in this sight,
If ever you escape from these dark regions,
"Open your ears and listen to my tidings:
Pistoia first divests herself of Blacks;
Then Florence changes over men and laws.
145 "From Valdimagra Mars draws a fiery vapor
Which is enwrapped in dark and smoky clouds,
And with a raging and relentless storm
"There shall be battling on Campo Piceno
Until it will abruptly smash the scud
150 And every White will be struck by the lightning.
"And I have told you this to make you suffer."
