Canto XXIV of Hell
The Hell of the man of robes.
It is how the snake does who bites its own tail.
In quella parte del giovanetto anno che 'l sole i crin sotto l'Aquario tempra e già le notti al mezzo dì sen vanno, quando la brina in su la terra assempra l'imagine di sua sorella bianca, ma poco dura a la sua penna tempra, lo villanello a cui la roba manca, si leva, e guarda, e vede la campagna biancheggiar tutta; ond'ei si batte l'anca, ritorna in casa, e qua e là si lagna, come 'l tapin che non sa che si faccia; poi riede, e la speranza ringavagna,
My Master had the face which express the disorder and I was terrified by it, but, he quickly put a balsam on my evil; because, as soon as we arrived at the broken bridge, he turned to me with this air which he had when he appeared to me the first time at the foot of the mountain. He opened his arms to me, after having seriously reflected and he seizes me in his arms. And as somebody who does not wait to think before acting, he raised me at the top of the rock, while guiding me as follows: "Cling yourself now, to this rock, but make sure first that it can support you." It was not a way for well dressed people, because him, light and myself, pushed, we could climb with as much sorrow, from one overhang to the other. I should have gived up, had not been that the rise was shorter on this side. When I got to the top, I was out of breath and I could not go further, also, I sat, hardly arrived. My Master then says to me: "Shake your lazyness, because it is neither in weakness neither in the pleasures nor on your couch that you will reach glory. Rise and triumph over the fear, have the will to overcome all the battles, if it does not bend under the weight of your body. The rise will be more difficult until the purgatory, to have left these people, is not sufficient so that you let yourself, carry by crutches; if you understand me well, do now in such a way that the lesson is worth to you." I rose then and say: "Go, because I am now bold and strong." Above, oover the bridge, we start again our journey: it was rough, narrow and difficult, and stiffer than the precedent. All was in abandonment and degradating because nobody was occupied to repair the bridges, levelling the roads or remaking the palisades. All the effort and the resources were concentrated to spy over the souls forgetting the aspect of the body; it is thus when imagination is degrading, the aspect of the people is degrading at the same time. I walked while speaking when a voice came from the new pit, of which I did not understood the words. Whom who spoke then, appeared dominated by anger. I was leaning downward; but eyes of living being could not see in the darkness, then I said: "Master, I make in such a way to arrive to the other enclosure and let us descend this wall, because as I hear without understanding, the same way I see in the bottom without distinguishing anything there." We went down at the head of the bridge and then, the pit then showed itself entirely to me; I saw there an appalling cluster of pigs, of species and sizes so varied that the only memory of it make my heart raise. That the plain of Bagot does not praise its fruits anymore, because, if it produces pigs, sows, porks, piggeries and boars, also porcines, wild boars, phacocheres, cochonnes and guinea-pigs, never it had exhibited, even in Upton, the country which extends above the water which is Black, so much disgracious nor also swines animals. Diabolic floats spreade on the roads and on the fields, a repugnant pulp which released such an odor of liquid manure, that the devils themselves where fleying and were barricaded behind the closed doors of immense long-standing barraks. Among these repugnant and sinister pile ups, where running people, naked and full of terror, without any hope of refuge nor escape; pigs trampled them on the ground, which planted in them, members and tail between their kidneys and which intertwined them and fornicate over them. And then, on one of them which was on our side, threw itself, a pig full with rage and, in an insane race, it transpierced it, so that the man melted himself in him and that it remained from this shock, only a pig of the size of a man. When he raised up, he looked all around, lost by the anguish of the shock, not knowing how to understand the force which transformed him in such a way and, like a repenting sinner, he exclaimed as follows: "Oh, how severe is the justice of God which, in his revenge, strikes similar blows!" My guide dared to ask him who he was and he then answered: "I fell from Anjou, recently, in this dreadful throat. Like to a pig wich I am, I had been pleased to live a life of a toga, and not the life of a man. I am Judge and the Bench was my unworthy mud." I sayid to my guide: "Tell him not to go away and ask him what fault has thrown him here, because I knew him, man of easy-talking but not of consciousness." And the sinner disguised as a pig heard me, he did not dissimulate anything, but he showed his soul and his face to me and, on his face, was painted a painful shame; then he says: "I suffer more of that you have surprised me in the state of misery where you see me, that I was when my life was removed from me. I was thrown so low, because I defended the robber, the rapist or that who has, mischievously claimed to be it and that another one was wrongly accused of the crime. I diverted justice to the profit of whom who cheat. I conceived the law which protects the robber against the one who is robbed. I heard the mother and refused to recognize the rights of the father. I tell that to you so that you suffer from it as much as I, myself, suffer from it." And thus, I learned that here those who suffered, on earth, pretending to be right towards the small one, invented laws, procedures, Charters of Freedom and Rights, Civil codes which helped the Vilains ones to circumvent Justice. It is how the snake does who bites its own tail.
Marco Polo ou le voyage imaginaire (La tragédie humaine, janvier 2000) © 1999 Jean-Pierre Lapointe
Theme musical: an the earth de Haag, emprunté aux Classical Midi Archives.
Important Notice: any photos or fragments of photos subject to copyright will be removed on notice.