'Twas at the time when Juno was enraged, For Semele, against the Theban blood, As she already more than once had shown, So reft of reason Athamas became, That, seeing his own wife with children twain Walking encumbered upon either hand, He cried: "Spread out the nets, that I may take The lioness and her whelps upon the passage;"
And then extended his unpitying claws, Seizing the first, who had the name Learchus, And whirled him round, and dashed him on a rock;
And she, with the other burthen, drowned herself;--And at the time when fortune downward hurled The Trojan's arrogance, that all things dared, So that the king was with his kingdom crushed, Hecuba sad, disconsolate, and captive, When lifeless she beheld Polyxena, And of her Polydorus on the shore Of ocean was the dolorous one aware, Out of her senses like a dog she barked, So much the anguish had her mind distorted;
But not of Thebes the furies nor the Trojan Were ever seen in any one so cruel In goading beasts, and much more human members, As I beheld two shadows pale and naked, Who, biting, in the manner ran along That a boar does, when from the sty turned loose.
One to Capocchio came, and by the nape Seized with its teeth his neck, so that in dragging It made his belly grate the solid bottom.
And the Aretine, who trembling had remained, Said to me: "That mad sprite is Gianni Schicchi, And raving goes thus harrying other people."
"O," said I to him, "so may not the other Set teeth on thee, let it not weary thee To tell us who it is, ere it dart hence."
And he to me: "That is the ancient ghost Of the nefarious Myrrha, who became Beyond all rightful love her father's lover.
She came to sin with him after this manner, By counterfeiting of another's form;
As he who goeth yonder undertook, That he might gain the lady of the herd, To counterfeit in himself Buoso Donati, Making a will and giving it due form."
And after the two maniacs had passed On whom I held mine eye, I turned it back To look upon the other evil-born.
I saw one made in fashion of a lute, If he had only had the groin cut off Just at the point at which a man is forked.
The heavy dropsy, that so disproportions The limbs with humours, which it ill concocts, That the face corresponds not to the belly, Compelled him so to hold his lips apart As does the hectic, who because of thirst One tow'rds the chin, the other upward turns.
"O ye, who without any torment are, And why I know not, in the world of woe,"
He said to us, "behold, and be attentive Unto the misery of Master Adam;
I had while living much of what I wished, And now, alas! a drop of water crave.
The rivulets, that from the verdant hills Of Cassentin descend down into Arno, Making their channels to be cold and moist, Ever before me stand, and not in vain;
For far more doth their image dry me up Than the disease which strips my face of flesh.
The rigid justice that chastises me Draweth occasion from the place in which I sinned, to put the more my sighs in flight.
There is Romena, where I counterfeited The currency imprinted with the Baptist, For which I left my body burned above.
