CANTO XXXI

The Divine Comedy - Inferno

by Dante Alighieri

Translated by Charles Eliot Norton

CANTO XXXI, THE DIVINE COMEDY - INFERNO by Alighieri Dante
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The Giants around the Eighth Circle.--Nimrod.
--Ephialtes.--Antaeus sets the Poets down in the Ninth Circle.

One and the same tongue first stung me, so that it tinged both
my cheeks, and then supplied the medicine to me. Thus do I
hear[1] that the lance of Achilles and of his father was wont to
be cause first of a sad and then of a good gift. We turned our
back to the wretched valley,[2] up along the bank that girds it
round, crossing without any speech. Here it was less than night
and less than day, so that my sight went little forward; but I
heard a horn sounding so loud that it would have made every
thunder faint, which directed my eyes, following its course
counter to it,[3] wholly to one place.

[1] Probably from Ovid, who more than once refers to the magic
power of the spear which had been given to Peleus by Chiron.
Shakespeare too had heard of it, and applies it, precisely as
Dante does, to one

Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,
Is able with the charge to kill and cure.
2 Henry VI. v. i.

[2] The tenth and last pit. My eyes went in the direction whence
the sound came.


After the dolorous rout when Charlemagne lost the holy gest,
Roland sounded not so terribly.[1] Shortwhile did I carry my head
turned thitherward, when it seemed to me I saw many high towers;
whereon I, "Master, say, what city is this?" And he to me,
"Because too far away thou peerest through the darkness, it
happens that thou dost err in thy imagining. Thou shalt see well,
if thou arrivest there, how much the sense at distance is
deceived; therefore somewhat more spur thyself on;" Then
teiiderly he took me by the hand, and said, "Before we go further
forward, in order that the fact may seem less strange to thee,
know that they are not towers, but giants, and they are in the
abyss[2] round about the bank, from the navel downward, one and
all of them."

[1] At Roncesvalles.

Rollanz ad mis l'olifan a sa buche,
Empeint le bien, par grant vertut le sunet.
Halt sunt li pui e la voiz est mult lunge,
Granz xxx. liwes l'oirent-il respundre,
Carles l'oit e ses cumpaignes tutes.

Chanson de Roland, 1753-57.

[2] The central deep of Hell, dividing the eighth circle from
the ninth,--the lowest.


As when the mist is dissipating, the look little by little shapes
out what the vapor that thickens the air conceals, so, as I
pierced the gross and dark air as we drew nearer and nearer to
the verge, error fled from me and fear grew upon me. For as above
its circular enclosure Montereggione [1] crowns itself with
towers, so with half their body the horrible giants, whom Jove
still threatens from heaven when he thunders, betowered the bank
that surrounds the abyss.

[1] The towers of Montereggione in ruin still crown its broken
wall, and may be seen from the railroad not far from Siena, on
the way to Florence.


And I discerned now the face of one, his shoulders, and his
breast, and great part of his belly, and down along his sides
both his arms. Nature, surely, when she left the art of such like
creatures, did exceeding well in taking such executers from Mars;
and if she repent not of elephants and of whales, he who looks
subtly holds her more just and more discreet therefor;[1] for
where the faculty of the mind is added to evil will and to power,
the human race can make no defense against it. His face seemed to
me long and huge as the pine-cone[2] of St. Peter at Rome, and in
its proportion were his other bones; so that the bank, which was
an apron from his middle downward, showed of him fully so much
above, that to reach to his hair three Frieslanders[3] would have
made ill vaunt. For I saw of him thirty great palms down from the
place where one buckles his cloak.

[1] For no longer creating giants.

[2] Of bronze, that came from the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and
in Dante's time stood in the fore-court of St. Peter's, and is
now in the Vatican gardens.

[3] Supposed to be tall men.


"Raphel mai amech zabi almi," the fierce mouth, to which sweeter
psalms were not befitting, began to cry. And my Leader toward
him, "Foolish soul! Keep to thy horn, and with that vent thyself
when anger or other passion touches thee; seek at thy neck, and
thou wilt find the cord that holds it tied, O soul confused! and
see it lying athwart thy great breast." Then he said to me, "He
himself accuses himself; this is Nimrod, because of whose evil
thought the world uses not one language only. Let us leave him,
and let us not speak in vain, for so is every language to him, as
his to others, which to no one is known."

Then turning to the left, we pursued our way, and at a
crossbow's shot we found the next, far more fierce and larger.
Who the master was for binding him I cannot tell; but he had his
right arm fastened behind, and the other in front, by a chain
that held him entwined from the neck downward, so that upon his
uncovered part it was wound as far as the fifth coil. "This
proud one wished to make trial of his power against the supreme
Jove," said my Leader, "wherefore he has such reward;
Ephialtes[1] is his name, and he made his great endeavors when
the giants made the Gods afraid; the arms which he plied he moves
nevermore."

[1] Iphimedeia bore to Poseidon two sons, "but they were short-
lived, godlike Otus and far-famed Ephialtes whom the fruitful
Earth nourished to be the tallest and much the most beautiful of
mortals except renowned Orion, for at nine years old they were
nine cubits in breadth, and nine fathoms tall. They even
threatened the immortais, raising the din of tumultuous war on
Olympus, and strove to set Ossa upon Olympus and wood-clad Pelion
upon Ossa, in order to scale heaven. But Jove destroyed them
both." Odyssey, xi. 306-317.


And I to him, "If it may be, I should like my eyes to have
experience of the huge Briareus." [1] Whereon he answered, "Thou
shalt see Antaeus close at hand here, who speaks, and is
unbound,[2] and will set us at the bottom of all sin. Him whom
thou wishest to see is much farther on, and is bound and
fashioned like this one, save that he seems more ferocious in his
look."

[1] "Him of the hundred hands whom the Gods call Briareus."
Iliad, i. 402.

[2] Because he took no part in the war of his brethren against
the Gods. What Dante tells of him is derived from Lucan,
Pharsalia, iv. 597 sqq.


Never was earthquake so mighty that it shook a tower as violently
as Ephialtes was quick to shake himself. Then more than ever did
I fear death; and there had been no need of more than the fright,
if I had not seen his bonds. We then proceeded further forward,
and came to Antaeus, who full five ells, besides his head, issued
forth from the cavern. "O thou that, in the fateful valley which
made Scipio the heir of glory when Hannibal and his followers
turned their backs, didst bring of old a thousand lions for
booty,--and it still seems credible that hadst thou been at the
high war of thy brothers, the sons of the Earth would have
conquered,--set us below, and disdain thou not to do so, where
the cold locks up Cocytus. Make us not go to Tityus, nor to
Typhon;[1] this one can give of that which here is longed for
;[2] therefore stoop, and curl not thy snout. He yet can restore
fame to thee in the world; for he is living, and still expects
long life, if Grace doth not untimely call him to itself." Thus
said the Master; and he in haste stretched out those hands, whose
strong grip Hercules once felt, and took my Leader. Virgil, when
he felt himself taken up, said to me, "Come hither so that I take
thee." Then he made one bundle of himself and me. As beneath its
leaning side, the Carisenda[3] seems to look when a cloud is
going over so that the tower hangs counter to it, thus seemed
Antaeus to me that stood attent to see him bend; and it was a
moment when I could have wished to go by another road. But
lightly on the bottom that swallows Lucifer with Judas he set us
down; nor, thus bent, did he there make stay, and like a mast in
a ship he raised himself.

[1] Lucan (Phars. iv. 600), naming these giants, says they were
less strong than Antaeus; wherefore there is subtle flattery in
these words of Virgil.

[2] To be remembered on earth.

[3] The more inclined of the two famous leaning towers at
Bologna. As the cloud goes over it, the tower seems to bend to
meet it. So Coleridge in his Ode to Dejection:

And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give sway their motion to the stars.