THE PUNISHMENT OF CARNAL SINNERS
[The Second Circle, that of Carnal Sinners.--Minos.--Shades
renowned of old.--Francesca da Rimini.]
Thus I descended from the first circle down into the second, which
girdles less space, and so much more woe that it goads to wailing. There
abides Minos horribly, and snarls; he examines the sins at the entrance;
he judges, and he sends according as he entwines himself. I mean that
when the miscreant spirit comes there before him, it confesses itself
wholly, and that discerner of sins sees what place of Hell is for it; he
girdles himself with his tail so many times as the degrees he wills it
should be sent down. Always before him stand many of them. They go, in
turn, each to the judgment; they speak, and hear, and then are whirled
below.
"O thou that comest to the woful inn," said Minos to me, when he saw me,
leaving the act of so great an office, "beware how thou enterest, and to
whom thou intrustest thyself; let not the amplitude of the entrance
deceive thee." And my Leader to him, "Why then dost thou cry out? Hinder
not his fated going; thus is it willed there where is power to do that
which is willed; and ask thou no more."
Now the woful notes begin to make themselves heard; now am I come where
much lamentation smites me. I had come into a place mute of all light,
that bellows as the sea does in a tempest, if it be combated by opposing
winds. The infernal hurricane that never rests carries along the spirits
with its rapine; whirling and smiting it molests them. When they arrive
before its rushing blast, here are shrieks, and bewailing, and
lamenting; here they blaspheme the power Divine. I understood that to
such torment are condemned the carnal sinners who subject reason unto
lust. And as their wings bear along the starlings in the cold season in
a troop large and full, so that blast the evil spirits; hither, thither,
down, up, it carries them; no hope ever comforts them, not of repose,
but even of less pain.
And as the cranes go singing their lays, making in air a long line of
themselves, so saw I come, uttering wails, shades borne along by the
aforesaid strife. Wherefore I said, "Master, who are those folk whom the
black air so castigates?" "The first of these of whom thou wishest to
have knowledge," said he to me then, "was empress of many tongues. To
the vice of luxury was she so abandoned that lust she made licit in her
law, to take away the blame she had incurred. She is Semiramis, of whom
it is read that she succeeded Ninus and had been his spouse; she held
the land which the Soldan rules. The other is she who, for love, slew
herself and broke faith to the ashes of Sichaeus. Next is Cleopatra, the
luxurious. See Helen, for whom so long a time of ill revolved; and see
the great Achilles, who at the end fought with love. See Paris,
Tristan--" and more than a thousand shades he showed me with his finger,
and named them whom love had parted from our life.
After I had heard my Teacher name the dames of eld and the cavaliers,
pity overcame me, and I was well-nigh bewildered. I began, "Poet,
willingly would I speak with those two that go together, and seem to be
so light upon the wind." And he to me, "Thou shalt see when they shall
be nearer to us, and do thou then pray them by that love which leads
them, and they will come." Soon as the wind sways them toward us I
lifted my voice: "O weary souls, come speak to us, if One forbid it
not."
As doves, called by desire, with wings open and steady, fly through the
air to their sweet nest, borne by their will, these issued from the
troop where Dido is, coming to us through the malign air, so strong was
the compassionate cry:--
"O living creature, gracious and benign, that goest through the lurid
air visiting us who stained the world blood-red,--if the King of the
universe were a friend we would pray him for thy peace, since thou hast
pity on our perverse ill. Of what it pleases thee to hear, and what to
speak, we will hear and we will speak to you, while the wind, as now, is
hushed for us. The city where I was born sits upon the sea-shore, where
the Po, with his followers, descends to have peace. Love, that on
gentle heart quickly lays hold, seized him for the fair person that was
taken from me, and the mode still hurts me. Love, which absolves no
loved one from loving, seized me for the pleasing of him so strongly
that, as thou seest, it does not even now abandon me. Love brought us to
one death. Caina waits him who quenched our life." These words were
borne to us from them.
Soon as I had heard those injured souls I bowed my face, and held it
down, until the Poet said to me, "What art thou thinking?" When I
replied, I began:--"Alas! how many sweet thoughts, how great desire, led
these unto the woful pass." Then I turned me again to them, and I spoke,
and began, "Francesca, thy torments make me sad and piteous to weeping.
But tell me, at the time of the sweet sighs by what and how did love
concede to you to know the dubious desires?" And she to me, "There is no
greater woe than in misery to remember the happy time, and that thy
Teacher knows. But if to know the first root of our love thou hast so
great a longing, I will do like one who weeps and tells.
"We were reading one day, for delight, of Lancelot, how love constrained
him. We were alone and without any suspicion. Many times that reading
made us lift our eyes, and took the color from our faces, but only one
point was that which overcame us. When we read of the longed-for smile
being kissed by such a lover, this one, who never from me shall be
divided, kissed my mouth all trembling. Galahaut[15] was the book, and
he who wrote it. That day we read in it no farther."
While one spirit said this, the other was weeping so that through pity I
swooned as if I had been dying, and fell as a dead body falls.
PURGATORY