Project Dante

Canto VII

'Pape Satan, Demon Leader!' 1
Plutus screams O fearful reader
There shook I from demons cries
The gentle sage, my noble guide 4
He taps me on the arm and says
'Stay true upon this troubled day
This monster has no power here
So follow we, the way is shear.' 8
Then turned he to the demon there
And silenced him with stinging glare
'Upon your spite let your-self feed
While down we go on journey deep.' 12
So demon drops like wind starved sail
As walked we on to Devil's Dale 14
And found ourselves by purple shore
Where universe of ills are stored 16
And all around us spirits rolled
Great weights that bound their living souls 18
And all of them before me ranged
Would walk about till bumped then change
To turn and push this useless rock
The other way till again was knocked 22
'Why do you waste?', ''Why do you squander?'
They cry in pain as round they wander
'Who are these souls that toil below?'
I asked my guide with voice set low 26
He answered me with sideways look
And then his head he slowly shook
'These souls to left and those to right
Were squint of mind in former life' 30
'Do I know these?' I quickly asked
As looking I with spite on mass
He looked at me and answered thus
'They're all the same that sin has brushed 34
Those misers who endured the fall
Their faces lost beyond recall
They swapped their souls for worthless gold
Now spend their days in toil and scold 38
Ill giving and ill keeping cost
These sinners in this land of sobs
Away with we, no pity here!'
He scolded as he led me clear 42
'O dullard, o paltroon, how dumb can you be
Why Fortune is goddess of destiny's tree
When God the Almighty the heavens He made
He set Fortune among us to circumstance trade 46
Now all that are born stand on destiny's path
Where your fate she lies wait like a rake in the grass.'
Why then Virgil looks up to check he the time
And says he abruptly 'Now onward we climb.' 50
And so we then toiled to the far distant shore
That filled and spilled from a foaming course
Together by these shadowed waves
That terminate this pathway strange 54
Beside the waters known as Styx
Its surface slimed with spirits slicked
And all of those, against they railed
Their fellows with their arms they flailed 58
And tore each other with their teeth
As legs and hands and heads they beat
'Why here resides,' my guide then says
'Those drawn to rage at every breath 62
And others who did sullen sigh
When air was bright and sun was high.' 64
And so then Virgil gestured on
And skirted me this slimy pond
And as we left by wails were chased
From mire to far towers base 68