Canto XXXI of Hell

The giants burried in Manhattan.
Whom who speaks is Uncle Sam.
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light.

 Una medesma lingua pria mi morse,
sì che mi tinse l'una e l'altra guancia,
e poi la medicina mi riporse;

  così od'io che solea far la lancia
d'Achille e del suo padre esser cagione
prima di trista e poi di buona mancia.

  Noi demmo il dosso al misero vallone
su per la ripa che 'l cinge dintorno,
attraversando sanza alcun sermone.

  Quiv'era men che notte e men che giorno,
sì che 'l viso m'andava innanzi poco;
ma io senti' sonare un alto corno,

We turned our back to the valley of misery, then, going up the dam which surrounds it 
on all  sides, we crossed it, without pronouncing a word. It was  twilight, 
and I heard a powerful murmur which seemed to come from the growl of several  beasts in fury. 
I had hardly turned my head on this side that I saw what seemed to be high towers; 

Also I asked: 
"Tell me, Baudelaire, what is that over there, this city which profiles its high towers?" 
He answered to me: 
"Your imagination is disturbed because you do not have the capacity to penetrate 
far into the darkness, when you will be closer you will see how much 
your senses misled you, so hurry-up  a little more." 

Then he took affectionately my hand and says to me: 
"Before we approach this place and so that this place appears less strange to you 
I teach you than they are not towers, but surely giants which rest in the plain 
at the center of Manhattan and, they are hidden from their coccyx down to the bottom." 

The same way one distinguishes more and more the objects  when the fog is dissipated, 
thus, by approaching me and by boring the thick and somber atmosphere,
 my error disappeared and terror seized me. 

As in Babylon, the ziggourat E-Temen-An-Ki provoque heaven, thus over Manhattan 
stand right up, such  high towers half-body hidden into the ground, 
the horrible giants who still defy while thundering, the imperialism of Jupiter-Mardouk. 
Nature should not be blamed to have thus given up the art of manufacturing such animals, 
and it can seem righter and more careful to have been limited to generate elephants and whales. 
If above power and wickedness we added the faculties of the spirit, 
then, man has no more defense against such animals, and Nemrod can benefit with ease 
from such executants. Its face appeared more imposing to me and as massive as the Pentagon 
and its other members were in proportion. 
"Whom who speaks is Uncle Sam." 
Started shouting the appalling mouth to which no other sweeter anthems is appropriate. 

And he continued like this:
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming, 
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in aire,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream.
'Tis the star-spangled banner, oh, long may it wave
O,er the land of the free and tho home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood has wash'd out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation!
blest with vict'ru and peace may the heav'n-resuced land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd
then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our Trust,"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

My guide answered him: 
"Dominating soul, take care only of your weapon, and turn it 
against yourself when anger or any other tare seizes yourself!
 Seek on your belly and you will find the belt who holds it attached, oh confused soul, 
see as it search where is your heart!" 

Then turning  towards me, he says to me with a low voice:
 "He glorifies himself; he is the new Nemrod whose bad thought is the cause 
of a single language being used on earth. Leave him there and let us not speak unnecessarily; 
because all languages, others than his own, are incomprehensible to him." 

We continued our trip further, turning towards our left, and, at a rifle range, 
we found another giant more savage and larger. 
Who was the Powerful who bound him, I could not say, but he had his two arms bound behind 
his back from neck to the bottom, by a chain which was rolled up several times around his trunk. 
"It is the reward he receives this Imperialist, who wanted to use his power against 
the sovereign Jupiter." 
His name is America and he made his great proofs when the giants tried to frighten God; 
the arms that he agitated then, never more will he stir them up.

And I said to my Master: 
"I would like, if that is possible, to see Lincoln, the one who live over there always sitting." 
And he answered to me: 
"You will see Jefferson who is nearer from here: He speaks and he is neither enchained nor buried, 
he is who will deposit us where all the sins piles up.
 Lincoln, that you want to see, is much further; 
He pretend to be malicious, except that he is impotent."

Never an earthquake was so violent, which shook the twin towers of the WTC 
with as much strenght than did America to shake itself abruptly. 
Then I feared death more than ever before, and I thanked heaven for having allowed 
that the elephant being enchained in front of the mouse I was. 
At far, I saw the great lady Liberty who looked at all this 
and who reassured us in enlighting us with the wind of freedom. 

We carried on our journay further away, and we arrived at Jefferson 
who had such a spirit, that he largely exceeded all the others: 
"Oh!, you who subjugated the South and invented the North and made that today,
 Pax Americana is imposed and that one propagates the culture of the sons of Israel, 
deposes us lower, and do not scorn to do it, where the Cocyte is cold in the ice, 
and do not use the wrong direction, we who do not have of another recourse, because here, 
God is American!"
 
Such appears the Tower of Pise, that leans dangerously from one side; thus Jefferson appeared to me
when he leaned to take us, and it was the moment when I would have agreed to be elsewhere. 
Then appeared to me, under one of the high towers, anotherslightly smaller tower which had 
the attributes of a woman, I remained all amazed and a little reassured to know that this vulgar world 
also entertained beauty, and I would well have wanted that it was Marylene 
who transport me on her breasts and bring me, with tenderness, to the other circle. 

But it was the other one who  gently deposed us, in the abyss, where are consumed,
Lucifer, Judas and Bush 
he  remained inclined for only a little time, and he stand up like the mast of a ship!