Thereby Cocytus wholly was congealed
With six eyes did he weep, and down three chinsTrickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.
At every mouth he with his teeth was crunchingA sinner, in the manner of a brake,So that he three of them tormented thus.
To him in front the biting was as naughtUnto the clawing, for sometimes the spineUtterly stripped of all the skin remained.
“That soul up there which has the greatest pain,”The Master said, “is Judas Iscariot;With head inside, he plies his legs without.
Of the two others, who head downward are,The one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus;See how he writhes himself, and speaks no word.
And the other, who so stalwart seems, is Cassius.But night is reascending, and ’tis timeThat we depart, for we have seen the whole.”
As seemed him good, I clasped him round the neck,And he the vantage seized of time and place,And when the wings were opened wide apart,
He laid fast hold upon the shaggy sides;From fell to fell descended downward thenBetween the thick hair and the frozen crust.
When we were come to where the thigh revolvesExactly on the thickness of the haunch,The Guide, with labour and with hard-drawn breath,
Turned round his head where he had had his legs,And grappled to the hair, as one who mounts,So that to Hell I thought we were returning.
“Keep fast thy hold, for by such stairs as these,”The Master said, panting as one fatigued,“Must we perforce depart from so much evil.”
Then through the opening of a rock he issued,And down upon the margin seated me;Then tow’rds me he outstretched his wary step.
I lifted up mine eyes and thought to seeLucifer in the same way I had left him;And I beheld him upward hold his legs.
And if I then became disquieted,Let stolid people think who do not seeWhat the point is beyond which I had passed.
“Rise up,” the Master said, “upon thy feet;The way is long, and difficult the road,And now the sun to middle-tierce returns.”
It was not any palace corridorThere where we were, but dungeon natural,With floor uneven and unease of light.
“Ere from the abyss I tear myself away,My Master,” said I when I had arisen,“To draw me from an error speak a little;
Where is the ice? and how is this one fixedThus upside down? and how in such short timeFrom eve to morn has the sun made his transit?”
And he to me: “Thou still imaginestThou art beyond the centre, where I graspedThe hair of the fell worm, who mines the world.
That side thou wast, so long as I descended;When round I turned me, thou didst pass the pointTo which things heavy draw from every side,
And now beneath the hemisphere art comeOpposite that which overhangs the vastDry-land, and ’neath whose cope was put to death
The Man who without sin was born and lived.Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphereWhich makes the other face of the Judecca.
Here it is morn when it is evening there;And he who with his hair a stairway made usStill fixed remaineth as he was before.
Upon this side he fell down out of heaven;And all the land, that whilom here emerged,For fear of him made of the sea a veil,
And came to our hemisphere; and peradventureTo flee from him, what on this side appearsLeft the place vacant here, and back recoiled.”
A place there is below, from BeelzebubAs far receding as the tomb extends,Which not by sight is known, but by the sound
Of a small rivulet, that there descendethThrough chasm within the stone, which it has gnawedWith course that winds about and slightly falls.
The Guide and I into that hidden roadNow entered, to return to the bright world;And without care of having any rest
We mounted up, he first and I the second,Till I beheld through a round apertureSome of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;
Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.