Canto XII

I heard the sound of cries and screams 1
All drifted from the distant stream
As guide points to the gloom below
And says 'This way we now must go 4
On path made by the Risen Christ
When harrowing the Hell he sliced
Right through he did, and took he then
The Fathers and the Kings of men.’ 12
So made we then our way down there
As choked I did on stinking air.
The path ahead was strewn with bones
That first I had mistook for stones 16
And human skulls filled every crag
In piles of hundreds they were stacked!
Then on the rim a nightmare shape
Of infamy, the monster lay, 20
And cast his eye about he did
All bright and red beneath its lid!
By minotaur our way was blocked
On shattered trail through blasted rock, 24
Now at its flanks the monster gnashed
With flaming hooves the ground it lashed!
'Perhaps you think him Ulysses?'
My master to the monster preached, 28
'No matter if you rant and fume,
This mortal morsel not for you.'
Berserk then goes the Minotaur
As hang we right to valley floor 32
The stones all move beneath my feet
And skitter then down pathway steep
Unused it was to living mass
That sent bones down the slope to crash 36
There standing at the pathway end
I saw a gang of Centaur bend
And stared they did to stare at bones
That skittered past like Rolling Stones 40
'You see he moves the very rocks!'
Proud Pholus said as moved he hocks
Then landed I in tangled heap
In tumble down at Centaur feet 44
And looked they did, and then they speak
'What punishment is it you seek?'
Then drew their bows and further still
With speed then loaded fast with quills. 48
Yet Virgil on them quickly gained
And to the Guardians he then explained,
'He is no robber, I no thief
But living man would you believe 52
Provide us Chiron, with a guide
For he not dead and cannot fly.’
Then Chiron turned to Nessus proud
And tells him then in voice full loud 56
To guard us and to guide us through
To place where we were going to
So on the Centaurs back I rode
As tales of river red I'm told 60
Where all who sin are want to learn
That Hell is free, but Heaven earned.
'See these who sit in boiling flow
These mighty tyrants now do know 64
The price of all their tyrant crimes
In life most brief, now endless time
All sit upon these rocks instead
With bloody flow up to their heads 68
And every time they gasp for air
An arrow hits them fair and square
For Centaurs move in watchful ranks
And guard with bow from deadly bank 72
And on each arrow flowing writ
'To Tyrants Death!’ in tiny script.’ 74
Now further up this bitter stream
I move along to sound of screams
Where people who did others ill
Might sit midstream up to their gills 78
And of these souls I knew some few
Who steeped within this boiling brew
There Hitler sat up to his brows
With Stalin, Enzo, Chairman Mao 82
And Reagan sat up to his lips
And Thatcher sunk up to her tits.
And Churchill lurked with belly wide
Immersed beneath the boiling tide, 86
And all the kings of Europe past
Into the boiling river cast,
Now find themselves in screaming throng
Up to their necks in Phlegathon. 90
Where all the souls of Darfur Black,
Avenged they were upon that bank.
Beside the course our path now led,
The boiling brook beside we tread, 94
Then Nessus takes us to a point
Where here and there by shallows joined.
And there we over shoals then crossed
Between the burning human dross 98
Then reaching we the other side
And enter Wood of Suicide 100