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189<br />
INF C28 22-63 / KLINE<br />
Even a wine-cask, that has lost a stave in the middle or the end, does not yawn as widely, as a spirit I saw, cleft from<br />
the chin down to the part that gives out the foulest sound: the entrails hung between his legs: the organs appeared,<br />
and the miserable gut that makes excrement of what is swallowed. While I stood looking wholly at him, he gazed at<br />
me, and opened his chest with his hands, saying: ‘See how I tear myself: see how Mahomet is ripped! In front of me,<br />
Ali goes, weeping, his face split from chin to scalp, and all the others you see here, were sowers of scandal and<br />
schism in their lifetimes: so they are cleft like this. There is a devil behind who tears us cruelly like this, reapplying<br />
his sword blade to each of this crowd, when they have wandered round the sad road, since the wounds heal before<br />
any reach him again. But who are you, who muse there on the cliff, maybe to delay your path to punishment, in<br />
sentence for your crimes?’ My Master replied: ‘Death has not come to him yet, nor does guilt lead him to torment,<br />
but it is incumbent on me, who am dead, to grant him full experience, and lead him, through the Inferno, down here,<br />
from circle to circle, and this is truth, that I tell you.’ When they heard him, more than a hundred spirits, in the ditch,<br />
halted, to look at me, forgetting their agony, in their wonder. After lifting up one foot, to leave, Mahomet said to me:<br />
‘Well now, you who will soon see the sun, perhaps, tell Fra Dolcino of the Apostolic Brothers, if he does not wish to<br />
follow me quickly, down here, to furnish himself with supplies, so that the snow-falls may not bring a victory for the<br />
Novarese, that otherwise would be difficult to achieve.’ Then, he strode forward to depart.<br />
INF C28 64-93 / KLINE<br />
Another, who had his throat slit, and nose cut off to the eyebrows, and had only a single ear, standing to gaze in<br />
wonder with the rest, opened his wind-pipe, that was red outside, all over, and said: ‘You, that no guilt condemns,<br />
and whom I have seen above on Latian ground, unless resemblance deceives me, remember Pier della Medicina, if<br />
you ever return to see the gentle plain, that slopes down from Vercelli to Marcabò. And make known to the<br />
worthiest two men in Fano, Messer Guido, and Angiolello, also, that unless our prophetic powers here are in vain,<br />
they will be cast out of their boat, and drowned near Cattolica, by treachery. Neptune never saw a greater crime,<br />
between the isles of Cyprus and Majorca, not even among those carried out by pirates, or by Greeks. Malatestino,<br />
the treacherous one, who only sees with one eye, and holds the land, that one, who is here with me, wishes he had<br />
never seen, will make them come to parley with him, then act so that they will have no need of vow or prayer to<br />
counter Focara’s winds. And I said to him: ‘If you would have me carry news of you, above, show me and explain<br />
who he is that rues the sight of it.’<br />
INF C28 94-117 / KLINE<br />
Then he placed his hand on the jaw of one of his companions, and opened the mouth, saying: ‘This is he: and he does<br />
not speak. This outcast quelled Caesar’s doubts at the Rubicon, saying that delay always harms men who are ready.’ O<br />
how dejected, Curio seemed to me, with his tongue slit in his palate, who was so bold in speech! And one who had both<br />
hands severed, lifting the stumps through the dark air, so that their blood stained his face, said: ‘You will remember<br />
Mosca too, who said, alas, “A thing done, has an end” which was seed of evil to the Tuscan race.’ ‘And death to your<br />
people’ I added, at which he, accumulating pain on pain, went away like one sad and mad. But I remained behind to<br />
view the crowd, and saw a thing, which, without more proof, I would be afraid to even tell, except that conscience<br />
reassures me, the good companion, that strengthens a man, under the armour of his self-respect.<br />
♫INFERNAL<br />
INF C28 21<br />
THE MUSIC HAS GIVEN DANTE HEART. HE HOLDS UP AN IMAGINARY HEAD./.LANTERN,<br />
THAT OF BERTRAN(D) DE BORN.<br />
BERTRAND DE BORN (C 1140-1215): LORD OF THE CASTLE OF HAUTEFORT (ALTAFORTE), NEAR PÉRIGORD, WHO SPENT HIS<br />
LIFE IN FEUDAL WARFARE, ENDED IT IN THE CISTERCIAN MONASTERY OF DALON, NEARBY. HE WAS ONE OF THE MOST<br />
INDIVIDUAL OF THE PROVENÇAL TROUBADOURS. ONE OF HIS FINEST POEMS (‘SI TUIT LI DOHL ELH PLOR ELH MARRIMEN’) IS HIS<br />
SONG OF LAMENT ON THE DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY PLANTAGENET, THE ELDER BROTHER TO RICHARD COEUR DE LION &<br />
NAMED THE ‘YOUNG KING’, THE SON OF HENRY II OF ENGLAND, AND TWICE CROWNED IN HIS FATHER’S LIFETIME.<br />
BERTRAND WAS ACCUSED OF STIRRING UP THE STRIFE WHEREBY HENRY II REFUSED TO GRANT THE SOVEREIGNTY OF<br />
ENGLAND OR NORMANDY TO HIS SON, AND WHICH LASTED UNTIL THE YOUNG KING’S DEATH IN 1183. (SEE EZRA POUND’S<br />
POEM ‘NEAR PÉRIGORD’ FROM LUSTRA, AND HIS TRANSLATION OF THE LAMENT ‘PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING’ IN<br />
PERSONAE: ALSO HIS TRANSLATION OF ‘DOMPNA POIS DE ME NO’US CAL’ IN LUSTRA, WHERE BERTRAND MAKES ‘A BORROWED<br />
LADY’, ‘UNA DOMPNA SOISEUBUDA’ OR ‘UNA DONNA IDEALE’, OUT OF THE BEST CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NOBLE WOMEN HE<br />
KNOWS, AND ITS COMPANION PIECE ‘NA AUDIART’ IN PERSONAE.)<br />
DANTE:<br />
INF C28 118-120 / DANTE INF C28 118-120 / KLINE<br />
Io vidi certo, e ancor par ch'io 'l veggia, I saw it clearly, and still seem to see, a headless<br />
un busto sanza capo andar sì come trunk, that goes on before, like the others,<br />
andavan li altri de la trista greggia; in that miserable crew,<br />
INF C28 121-123 / DANTE<br />
e 'l capo tronco tenea per le chiome, and holds its severed head, by the hair,<br />
pesol con mano a guisa di lanterna: swinging, like a lantern, in its hand.<br />
e quel mirava noi e dicea: «Oh me!». It looked at us, and said: “Ah me!”.