Purgatorio

Canto XIV

Bagnacaval does well in not begetting

And ill does Castrocaro, and Conio worse,

In taking trouble to beget such Counts.

Will do well the Pagani, when their Devil

Shall have departed; but not therefore pure

Will testimony of them e'er remain.

O Ugolin de' Fantoli, secure

Thy name is, since no longer is awaited

One who, degenerating, can obscure it!

But go now, Tuscan, for it now delights me

To weep far better than it does to speak,

So much has our discourse my mind distressed."

We were aware that those beloved souls

Heard us depart; therefore, by keeping silent,

They made us of our pathway confident.

When we became alone by going onward,

Thunder, when it doth cleave the air, appeared

A voice, that counter to us came, exclaiming:

"Shall slay me whosoever findeth me!"

And fled as the reverberation dies

If suddenly the cloud asunder bursts.

As soon as hearing had a truce from this,

Behold another, with so great a crash,

That it resembled thunderings following fast:

"I am Aglaurus, who became a stone!"

And then, to press myself close to the Poet,

I backward, and not forward, took a step.

Already on all sides the air was quiet;

And said he to me: "That was the hard curb

That ought to hold a man within his bounds;

But you take in the bait so that the hook

Of the old Adversary draws you to him,

And hence availeth little curb or call.

The heavens are calling you, and wheel around you,

Displaying to you their eternal beauties,

And still your eye is looking on the ground;

Whence He, who all discerns, chastises you."