Albeit that this people maledict
To true perfection never can attain,Hereafter more than now they look to be.”
Round in a circle by that road we went,Speaking much more, which I do not repeat;We came unto the point where the descent is;
There we found Plutus the great enemy.
Inferno: Canto VII
“Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!”Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began;And that benignant Sage, who all things knew,
Said, to encourage me: “Let not thy fearHarm thee; for any power that he may haveShall not prevent thy going down this crag.”
Then he turned round unto that bloated lip,And said: “Be silent, thou accursed wolf;Consume within thyself with thine own rage.
Not causeless is this journey to the abyss;Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wroughtVengeance upon the proud adultery.”
Even as the sails inflated by the windInvolved together fall when snaps the mast,So fell the cruel monster to the earth.
Thus we descended into the fourth chasm,Gaining still farther on the dolesome shoreWhich all the woe of the universe insacks.
Justice of God, ah! who heaps up so manyNew toils and sufferings as I beheld?And why doth our transgression waste us so?
As doth the billow there upon Charybdis,That breaks itself on that which it encounters,So here the folk must dance their roundelay.
Here saw I people, more than elsewhere, many,On one side and the other, with great howls,Rolling weights forward by main force of chest.
They clashed together, and then at that pointEach one turned backward, rolling retrograde,Crying, “Why keepest?” and, “Why squanderest thou?”
Thus they returned along the lurid circleOn either hand unto the opposite point,Shouting their shameful metre evermore.
Then each, when he arrived there, wheeled aboutThrough his half-circle to another joust;And I, who had my heart pierced as it were,
Exclaimed: “My Master, now declare to meWhat people these are, and if all were clerks,These shaven crowns upon the left of us.”
And he to me: “All of them were asquintIn intellect in the first life, so muchThat there with measure they no spending made.
Clearly enough their voices bark it forth,Whene’er they reach the two points of the circle,Where sunders them the opposite defect.
Clerks those were who no hairy coveringHave on the head, and Popes and Cardinals,In whom doth Avarice practise its excess.”
And I: “My Master, among such as theseI ought forsooth to recognise some few,Who were infected with these maladies.”
And he to me: “Vain thought thou entertainest;The undiscerning life which made them sordidNow makes them unto all discernment dim.
Forever shall they come to these two buttings;These from the sepulchre shall rise againWith the fist closed, and these with tresses shorn.
Ill giving and ill keeping the fair worldHave ta’en from them, and placed them in this scuffle;Whate’er it be, no words adorn I for it.
Now canst thou, Son, behold the transient farceOf goods that are committed unto Fortune,For which the human race each other buffet;
For all the gold that is beneath the moon,Or ever has been, of these weary soulsCould never make a single one repose.”
“Master,” I said to him, “now tell me alsoWhat is this Fortune which thou speakest of,That has the world’s goods so within its clutches?”
And he to me: “O creatures imbecile,What ignorance is this which doth beset you?Now will I have thee learn my judgment of her.