Guido da Montefeltro
By this time the flame stood straight and still
With no more words and by now took its leave
With the permission of the gentle poet
When another, coming right behind it,
5 Forced us to turn our eyes toward its tip
Because of the scrambled sound it sputtered out.
As the Sicilian bull — that bellowed first
With cries of the man (it served him right!)
Who with his file had tuned the beast for torture —
10 Would bellow so loudly with its victim’s voice
Within it that, though the whole was brass
The thing seemed penetrated by the pain:
So, without a way out or through the soul
Burning inside the flame, the words of woe
15 Then became the language of the fire.
But after the voices found their own way up
Through the tip, giving it the tremble which
The tongue had given to the fiery passage,
We heard the flame: "O you to whom I turn
20 My voice and who, speaking in Lombard, said,
‘Now you may leave, I ask no more of you,’
"Although, perhaps, I come a little late,
Take the trouble to stop and speak to me:
See, it shan't trouble me, and I am burning.
25 "If you just now fell down to this blind world
Out of that sweet country of Italy
From which I carry all my guilt, tell me,
"Do the Romagnoles have peace or war?
For I came from the mountains between Urbino
30 And the range where the Tiber fountains forth."
I still leaned out, bent and listening,
When my guide nudged me on my side and said,
"You talk to him: this one is Italian."
And I, already eager to respond,
35 Began to speak up without hesitation:
"O soul, hidden below there in that fire,
"Your Romagna is not now and never was
Free of war in the hearts of her tyrants,
But no war was waging when I left her.
40 "Ravenna, now many years, remains the same:
The eagle of Polenta broods over her
And also covers Cervia with his wings.
"Forlì, the city which once withstood the siege
And reduced the French to a bloody rubble,
45 Finds herself again beneath green talons.
"Both mastiffs, old and young, from Verrucchio,
Who kept such a poor watchout for Montagna,
Sink their teeth where they usually do.
"The cities on Lamone and Santerno
50 Are ruled by the lion-cub on the white lair
Who summer to winter shifts from side to side.
"Cesena, whose shore the Savio bathes,
Just as it lies between the plain and mountain,
Lives in-between tyranny and freedom.
55 "Now I beg you to tell us who you are:
Don’t be more stubborn than I’ve been with you
If in the world you’d like your name to last."
After the flame had roared on for some time
In its unique way, the pointed tip swayed
60 Back and forth and then released this breath:
"If I thought that my answer was to someone
Who might one day return up to the world,
This flame would never cease its flickering.
"However, since no one ever turned back, alive,
65 From this abyss — should what I hear be true —
Undaunted by infamy, I answer you.
"I was a man of arms and then a friar,
Thinking to atone, girt with the cincture,
And surely my thought would have proven right
70 "Had not that high priest (evil overtake him!)
Caused me to backslide into earlier crimes:
And how and why, I would you heard from me.
"While I was still bound by the bones and flesh
My mother gave me, the things I accomplished
75 Were not those of the lion but the fox.
"Its wiles and covert ways, I knew them all,
And I conducted their art so cunningly
My repute resounded to the ends of earth.
"But when I saw that I had reached the point
80 In my life when each man takes on the duty
To lower the sails and pull in the tackle,
"Things that once brought pleasure now gave pain.
Repentant and confessed, I joined the friars:
What a pity! And it would have worked!
85 "The crowned prince of the new Pharisees —
Going to war close to the Lateran
And not against the Saracens or Jews
"(Since every enemy of his was Christian
And not one of them had gone to conquer Acre
90 Or been a trader in the Sultan’s country) —
"Ignored the high office and holy orders
Belonging to him and ignored the cincture
Which once made men — like me — who wore it leaner:
"But just as Constantine sought out Sylvester
95 On Mount Soracte to heal his leprosy,
So he sought me to act as his physician
"To help heal him of the fever of his pride.
He asked me for my counsel — I kept quiet
Because his words seemed from a drunken stupor.
100 "Then he said, ‘Your heart need not mistrust:
I absolve you in advance and you instruct me
How to knock Penestrino to the ground.
" ‘I have the power to lock and unlock heaven,
You know that, because I keep the two keys
105 For which my predecessor took no care.’
"His weighty arguments so pressured me then
That silence seemed the worse course, and I said,
‘Father, since you cleanse me of that sin
" ‘Into which I now must fall — remember:
110 An ample promise with a small repayment
Shall bring you triumph on the lofty throne.’
"Francis — the moment that I died — came then
For me, but one of the black cherubim
Called to him, ‘Don’t take him! don’t cheat me!
115 " ‘He must come down to join my hirelings
Because he offered counsel full of fraud,
And ever since I’ve been after his scalp!
" ‘For you can’t pardon one who won’t repent,
And one cannot repent what one wills also:
120 The contradiction cannot be allowed.’
"O miserable me! how shaken I was
When he grabbed hold of me and cried, ‘Perhaps
You didn’t realize I was a logician!’
"He carried me off to Minos who twisted
125 His tail eight times around his hardened back,
Then bit it in gigantic rage and blared,
" ‘This is a sinner for the fire of thieves!’
So I am lost here where you see me go
Walking in this robe and in my rancor."
130 When he had finished speaking in this fashion,
The lamenting flame went away in sorrow,
Turning and tossing its sharp-pointed horn.
We traveled on ahead, my guide and I,
Along the ridge as far as the next bridgeway
135 Arching the ditch where they must pay the price
Who earned such loads by sowing constant discord.
