Canto V of Hell

The mark of Minos, the buncer of Hell.
The circle of Caïn is there, who waits for us.

Così discesi del cerchio primaio
giù nel secondo, che men loco cinghia,
e tanto più dolor, che punge a guaio.

  Stavvi Minòs orribilmente, e ringhia:
essamina le colpe ne l'intrata;
giudica e manda secondo ch'avvinghia.

  Dico che quando l'anima mal nata
li vien dinanzi, tutta si confessa;
e quel conoscitor de le peccata

  vede qual loco d'inferno è da essa;
cignesi con la coda tante volte
quantunque gradi vuol che giù sia messa.

From the first circle, I went down lower in a second circle, narrower,
and so, it was tormented to make howl of pain.
 There, is held Minos, horrible monster who controls at the summit of the Cap Tourmente*, 
squeaking the teeth and severe; he scrutinize the faults at the entry, 
he judges and he distributes the places of each one. 
When appears before him, the damn soul, she confesses and this inquisitor 
of the sins assigns to him, the place of Hell that is most appropriate to him. 

As soon as he saw me he says to me: 
"Oh you! who come to the region of pain, do you know where you enter and whom to trust? 
Do not believe to be able to leave from here in spite of the width of the entry." 

And my guide answered him: 
"Why shout like this? 
You do not have to be opposed to his fatal voyage; it is desired so, and do not ask any more."


 I am already where one cries; I hear already the cries of pain, the groanings and the tears.
 I approach the place without light that mugit like makes the sea, where reign the storm and where 
the suffering seems eternal. The infernal hurricane, which never has rest, transport the spirits 
in its tempest: it rolls them, it shocks them, it molests them. 
When they arrive in front of the Éboulements*,
 they make hear cries, tears, lamentations and they blasphemes the divine power. 

And I understood that, with such a torment, were condemned those
who subordinates the carnal desire rather than the reason.

 Thus made this gust of the perverse spirits; it carries them out everywhere, 
without any rest nor reduced sorrow. 
And as the geese that migrate and form in the air a triangle, thus I saw coming, 
pushing some groanings, shadows pulled by the tempest. 

This is why I say: 
"Master, who are these souls who, the Hell of Hilarion punishes this way?" 


"The first of those, whom you want to know, was the Mother of people with decadent morals.
 She was so prompt with these vices that, to prevent that one blames her, 
she promulgated laws supporting the license of morals. 

She is Feminis, mistress of Semiramis, who instituted the vaginocraty in Babylon; 
see Erinys who, in her fury for love, killed Aphrodite who preferred the love of a male, to her. 
And the mysterious Lilith who shared the love of God, in the shape of a vaginal vibrator. 
Then came Calypso, the luxurious, who could not know to whose Pretty to hung herself. 
Here is Salome whose dance excites you at this point and who sliced the head of the Baptiste,
 who, by seven times, preferred to give himself  to  foreigners. 
And see Mirrha who, treacherously, shared the couch of her father. 
See also Khali and Durka, these goddesses, eating your seeds and your life, 
without forgetting the ogress who, the municipal officials call, "Fiscal Base", 
she possesses, for only gift, that of devouring Nature and Tradition. 

Would you like to know others, between them, and perhaps among them,  young girls in love 
whom you have seduced and who would have committed suicide out of love for you?" 
And with his finger he showed me, by naming them, more than a thousand shadows
 whose love made them quit, from my life of debauchee. 


After I hearded him naming these young ladies of a former time, 
pity seizes me and I remained lost about it; 
my affectionate complaint was so strong, that two shadows, who seemed as light as doves, 
transported by desire, their wings spreaded and intertwined one into the other, 
left the troop of Didon, came towards us through the bad air and one of the ladies says to me:
 "Oh gracious and benevolent being who, by the air of a somber darkness, goes visiting us, 
us whose earth was dyed of our blood, if the King of the universe likes us, we would request Him
 that He grants you the eternal salvation since you have pity of our perverse evil. All that you would like 
to hear and say, we will hear it and will speak about it while the wind, as it knows to do it, softens. 

The land where I was born is located on the river bank at Pont-Rouge* 
where the Grand Fleuve* flows down, seeking peace with its affluents. 
Love seized our beautiful bodies, in a way from which I remain still wounded. 
Love made me take from the lover, so strong a pleasure, that it still does not give me up yet.
 Love led us both to the same death, at the bottom of the Cocyte 
the circle of Caïn is there, that awaits us."


 "Tender sweethearts, your sufferings make me cry and I believe unjust that you suffer 
to have loved thus. But say it to me, at the time of the soft whisperings, to what and how 
Love enabled you to discover the desire one for the other?" 

She answered to me: 
"There is no greater pain than to remind ourselves our happy days.
 If you have such a desire to know the origin of our love,
 I would make very well like the one who acts while speaking to you, but I see that your beautiful body 
is not subjected, yet, to hell and to the kind of entertainment he promises. 
It is by reading the Geste of Lancelot that love seized me, I was alone and without defense;
at the passage where the lover did so, she stripped my flesh and kissed me, body and soul, 
my husband surprised us one inserted in the other and intertwined till death." 

While she spokes thus, the other cried and I fell as fall a lover who dies without apparent reason.