Canto XIV of Hell

The crucified Lady of the mount Royal.
The eugenist, the tall old man of Bergeronnes.
Stabat Mater Dolorosa.

Poi che la carità del natio loco
mi strinse, raunai le fronde sparte,
e rende'le a colui, ch'era già fioco.

  Indi venimmo al fine ove si parte
lo secondo giron dal terzo, e dove
si vede di giustizia orribil arte.

  A ben manifestar le cose nove,
dico che arrivammo ad una landa
che dal suo letto ogne pianta rimove.

  La dolorosa selva l'è ghirlanda
intorno, come 'l fosso tristo ad essa:
quivi fermammo i passi a randa a randa.

Moved by the love that I had for my native land, I collected the scattered leaves 
and I returned them to whom who already had lost his voice. 
We arrived further, where one sees a horrible form of Justice.
It was a moor in which no plant could grow. 

It is enclosed by the forest of pain and a lugubrious pit which makes out of it, like a crown; 
there, we stopped our steps very close to the edge. 
This space was of dry and moving sand which slipped off the hills 
into the water of the large river between Bergeronnes* and Tadoussac*. 

Oh revenge of God! how much you must inspire fear to whoever read what appeared then
to my eyes! I saw large herds of stripped souls who cried miserably and 
who appeared subjected to contradictory laws. Some lay on their back, in sand; 
others were squatted and motionless, others crawled without any rest. 

On all this sand rained large flakes of fire, as snow falls into the Apalaches*: 
like the forests of the Tundra, in these areas set in fire by the lightning, that the firemen 
vainly try to extinguish by creating artificial barriers against the advance 
of the destroying fire or by releasing tons of water from the Sky with lugubrious iron birds. 
Here and there they tried, with their miserable hands, to disperse the burn coming from above. 



"Master, you who triumphs of all the obstacles, except for the  stubborn demons who followed us 
to the door of this circle, who is this tall old man who does not worry about the fire, 
who appears so disdainful and that the rain does not seem to burn?" 


And this one, who saw me questioning my guide thus, says to me: 
"Such I was alive, such I died 
and Vulcan can well feed its forges of Saint-Maurice*, he will not be able to be avenged, 
that I despise him as I despise all those who believe they are my Masters." 


Then my Master spoke with such a vehemence that I never heard him do it like that: 
"Oh! who you may be, your punishment increases at the same time as your pride, 
no torment would be big enough to compensate for your fury!" 


Then, he turned to me and became calm again, he says to me: 
"This is the tall old man of Bergeronnes. 
He is an Eugenist and he seems the only one, whose suffering calms down 
under the influence of the despise he attributes to the works of God; 
but as I said  to him, his vexation is an ornament which is well appropriate to his forfeiture. 
Now follow me, hold your feet close to the wood and thus avoid putting them on the burning sand." 
 

Silent, we arrived in a place from where, out of the forest, a very small light spouts out 
whose red colour still inspires  me. Such is this place  that rests from the journey and where 
courtesans dwells; it was there, apart from the moroseness of the city. Their beds and their clothing 
were undone, the windows and the doors opened to the passers by, 
what showed me that it was by there that it was necessary for me to pass. 


"Among all that I showed to you, since we passed through the door 
whose entry is not refuse to anybody, your eyes did not discover anything  
as remarkable as this place, which revives in you all your sleeping passions." 


So, spoke my guide; his words were convincing so much that I pray him
to let me taste, eternally, to the ambrosia and the nectar of their half-opened lips: 
this nourishment of which they had given me the taste and who render man immortal. 

Then he says to me: 
 
"Do not let yourself allure by the mirages of these sirens, 
that one would like to fall asleep in their arms to never wake up anymore. 
But  rather quit this place and follow me hastily. 

In the middle of the river is a city devastated who bears the soft name of Ville-Marie* and, 
under the control of a foreign Pontive, its people are now in inconsistency. 
There is there an antique volcano that was formerly brightened by water and foliages 
and which had a Royal name; it is now deserted, traversed by bitumen,
 ruins of palaces and cottages like a thing of the past. 

The mothers formerly chose it for the secure cradle of their sons and, for better protecting them, 
when they had fun at crucifier the young girls, they emptied the brothels of the Main. 
At the top of this mountain, a great lady is held upright, 
she turns her back to the Capital and she looks at the city as if it was her only mirror. 
All her body is covered with gold sheets, except her stigmas which are of livid flesh; 
her face is sad and is crowned with sparkling diamonds in place of spines; 
her hands and her feet are welded to the cross by solid bronze nuts, 
alliances of zinc coated metal perforate her mammals and her navel also, 
and only the spot where she generates pleasure is free of any obstacle. 

The cross on which she is crucified thus, is a coarse structure of anodic aluminium 
decorated with bulbs which brighten the night. From all the wounds of her body 
squirt tears of blood which, while laying up, had dugged drains on the mountainside. 
Their courses go down from rock to rock into the valley; they form the Acheron, the Styx 
and the Phlegeton. She groans and she twisted herself as if an invisible phallus penetrates her and, 
from her half-opened vulva, runs out a liquor which spreads up to this point 
where one does not go down any more; it forms there, the Cocyte;
 what is this pond, you will see it, also do not speak about it anymore."


 I heard, at far, the lamentations of thousands of weepers and a lugubrious song
that became unperceivable as we advence in the plain, it said about this


"Stabat Mater dolorosa,
Juxta Crucem lacrimosa,
Dum pendebat Filius."

"Cujus animam gementem,
Contristatam et dolentem, 
Pertransivit gladius."

"O quam tristis et afflicta
Fuit illa benedicta
Mater Unigeniti!"

"Quae moerabat et dolebat, 
Pia Mater, dum videbat
Nati Poenas in......."

"Quis est homo qui ......on fieret,
Matrem Christi si .......
 ..................."

"........................
Christi  Matrem ...........
Quis no................"

"........................
........Jesum in tormen.......
..........."

Without ceasing to advance, the complaints were lost in the night, 
I then say to my Master: 

"Master, where is the Lethe which you do not speak about
and Phlegeton of which, you say, it is made from a rain of tears?" 


And he answered me: 
 "All your questions resembles to the boiling of red water; 
the Lethe, you will see it out of the abyss, where  the repented souls go and wash themself
when their fault is expiated. Now it is time to draw us aside from the woods; 
do your best to walk behind me; the curbstones which are not set ablaze 
make a way and, above them, all the sparks die out." 


Then my Master kept silent himself and I followed him as formerly as,
 I followed, docile and without knowing too much why, my holy Mother.