At Ceperano, where a renegade
Was each Apulian, and at Tagliacozzo,Where without arms the old Alardo conquered,
And one his limb transpierced, and one lopped off,Should show, it would be nothing to compareWith the disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia.
A cask by losing centre-piece or cantWas never shattered so, as I saw oneRent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.
Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;His heart was visible, and the dismal sackThat maketh excrement of what is eaten.
While I was all absorbed in seeing him,He looked at me, and opened with his handsHis bosom, saying: “See now how I rend me;
How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;In front of me doth Ali weeping go,Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;
And all the others whom thou here beholdest,Disseminators of scandal and of schismWhile living were, and therefore are cleft thus.
A devil is behind here, who doth cleave usThus cruelly, unto the falchion’s edgePutting again each one of all this ream,
When we have gone around the doleful road;By reason that our wounds are closed againEre any one in front of him repass.
But who art thou, that musest on the crag,Perchance to postpone going to the painThat is adjudged upon thine accusations?”
“Nor death hath reached him yet, nor guilt doth bring him,”My Master made reply, “to be tormented;But to procure him full experience,
Me, who am dead, behoves it to conduct himDown here through Hell, from circle unto circle;And this is true as that I speak to thee.”
More than a hundred were there when they heard him,Who in the moat stood still to look at me,Through wonderment oblivious of their torture.
“Now say to Fra Dolcino, then, to arm him,Thou, who perhaps wilt shortly see the sun,If soon he wish not here to follow me,
So with provisions, that no stress of snowMay give the victory to the Novarese,Which otherwise to gain would not be easy.”
After one foot to go away he lifted,This word did Mahomet say unto me,Then to depart upon the ground he stretched it.
Another one, who had his throat pierced through,And nose cut off close underneath the brows,And had no longer but a single ear,
Staying to look in wonder with the others,Before the others did his gullet open,Which outwardly was red in every part,
And said: “O thou, whom guilt doth not condemn,And whom I once saw up in Latian land,Unless too great similitude deceive me,
Call to remembrance Pier da Medicina,If e’er thou see again the lovely plainThat from Vercelli slopes to Marcabo,
And make it known to the best two of Fano,To Messer Guido and Angiolello likewise,That if foreseeing here be not in vain,
Cast over from their vessel shall they be,And drowned near unto the Cattolica,By the betrayal of a tyrant fell.