Canto XXVIII of Hell
image Rojo

The Legislator decapitaded.
Thus can be observed in me, the law of retaliation.

Chi poria mai pur con parole sciolte dicer del sangue e de le piaghe a pieno ch'i' ora vidi, per narrar piů volte? Ogne lingua per certo verria meno per lo nostro sermone e per la mente c'hanno a tanto comprender poco seno. S'el s'aunasse ancor tutta la gente che giŕ in su la fortunata terra di Puglia, fu del suo sangue dolente per li Troiani e per la lunga guerra che de l'anella fé sě alte spoglie, come Livio scrive, che non erra,


RETURN TO THE PORTAL OF HELL


Never I could, even with my more beautiful rhymes, express in a perfect way, the blood and the wounds that I saw. Never a damned one was so perforated, like a barrel that lost its bars and its ditches; he was split from the chin to the hole where one fart, his bowels hung on his legs, one saw his lungs and the satchel where transforms itself into shit, all that one eats. While I applied myself to seeing him well, he looked at me and he opens his chest whith his hands then he says to me: "Why you look at me that way, who goes along crying, because I am limping and split up, my face cut from the chin to the cheeck. All the others, whom you see here such as I am, were, when alive, sowers of discord. It is for that that they all are, like me, and that a devil is behind them, which makes pass each one of our species, to the slice of his sword and arranges them cruelly like such, whereas he splits them into two." And ithe continued as follows: "But you who is idle on this bridge, who are you, perhaps you think you will delay the moment to go to your punishment which is appropriate for that for which you were accused?" My Master answered to him: "He did not die and he did commit no faut which destined himt to the torments of Hell, but me who is dead, I must guide him from circle to circle in Hell, to give him full experiment of it; and that, believe me, is as true as I speak to you." To these words, hundred of spirits and more, stopped in the ditch and looked at me, astonished, forgetting for one moment their sufferings: "Oh, you that no fault condemns and whom I saw up there on the nordic land; if a too great resemblance does not mislead me, remember me, if ever you go back to see the soft plain that runs from Contrecoeur to Noyan, and let know to the friend I left over there, that if my reading of the stars does not mislead me, he will be calumniated to have abused of his daughter and imprisoned, a stone on his neck, in Bordeaux, by the erroneous charge of his felonious wife: this traitress who sees only with one eye, and who holds makes this assembly, and make it believe what she wants and only what she wants to hear, and which will act so that from the wind of calumny will not preserve him, neither wishes neither prayers nor absence of evidence!" I answered to him: "Show me that one, so that I recognize her well, who has subjugated this assembly and her daughter if you want that I restore the truth up there." Then, he approached towards one of his partners, carried his hand ton her jaw, and he opens her mouth while shouting: "Here she is, and she does not speak any more." Oh! how she appeared terrified, her tongue cut in the throat, this Viper which had been so bold to calumniate! And one damned, who had his two hands sliced, raising his stubs in the dark air, so that blood soiled his face, shouted: "Remember Me also, who wanted to divorce and flee with the child of his blood; who subjugated the lawyer to believe me and not to believe the husband and did such that the Judge denies the father the right of paternity." I retorted: "And the death of your sex! The reason why, accumulating pain on pain, he avenged himself as a man whose treason turns insane, of having been prevented of the happiness of being the father of his daughter." But I remained looking at the troop, and I saw asomething who cannot be told without proof, if I was not reassured by my conscience which gives me courage; I saw, and I believe Istill see it, a body delested from his head, walk such as walked the others which formed a herd; he held his cut head by the hair, it was suspended to his hands like one makes of a lantern and the head looked at us and said: "Poor of me!" He made of its own head like a torch, he was one and at the same time he formed two separate beings; how can we explain that, only The One who ordered that could. As soon as he was at the foot of the bridge, he raised his head at the end of his arm to bring it closer to us, so that we hear his words and he says: "You who visits the deaths like this, see how my sorrow is cruel and that there is none more atrocious, then give some news of myself to those who remained. Know that I am the Legislator, the one who edict the laws to appear Liberal and, by the perfidious councils of the Gorgone, I put face to face, the husband and the wife; I did so that, there had been no more women who believe nor men who hope. Medea did make nothing more, to draw up one against the other, the father and the doughter by her perverse magics. To have separated human beings so unite, I carry my brain separate from its principle which is in this trunk; thus can be observed in me, the law of retaliation."



Marco Polo ou le voyage imaginaire (La tragédie humaine, janvier 2000) © 1999 Jean-Pierre Lapointe
Theme musical: dark goddess de David Warins Solomons, emprunté aux Classical Midi Archives.
Important Notice: any photos or fragments of photos subject to copyright will be removed on notice.


CANTO XXIX OF HELL