CANTO THE TWENTY-NINTH.

ARGUMENT.

Next to the Circle of Sedition succeeds the Region allotted to the Punishment of Alchemists, fraudulent Projectors, and other Impostors of that sort; who are described under several kinds of torture, various as their crimes: Among these, the Poet meets Griffolino of Arezzo, a famous Projector, and Capochio of Siena a Professor of the occult Philosophy.

Thus maim’d with many a wound, the dismal train

I saw, in long procession o’er the plain

Lamenting march, ’till sorrow dimm’d my sight:

At length, the Mantuan Bard exclaim’d, “Forbear!

Why ever thus distil the fruitless tear,

And mourn in vain the sentenc’d bands of night?”

II.

Mean’st thou on this exalted point to stand,

And fondly number o’er the wailing band,

That mark with streaming gore the Stygian path

—No slight survey can reach the mighty sum,

For seven Cimmerian leagues are yet to come,

Hid by their Legions in the fields beneath.

III.

“Come on!—the fatal moments fleet away!

And, far beneath our feet, with upward ray

The Moon beholds the rolling world below.

Far other thoughts the passing moments claim,

A slender space assign’d to deathless fame,

Which onward leads us thro’ the vale of woe.”

IV.

“No trivial cause,” I cry’d, “my steps detain’d!”

Still bent on haste, the Bard my suit disdain’d.

“Oh, Father! stay,” I cry’d, “a kindred voice,

Ascending from the deep, my hearing wounds—

There! there again! I hear the well‑known sounds,

And yonder talks the Shade in foul disguise.”

V.

Solemn the Bard reply’d, “the hour is past,

Presume not thou the gist of Heav’n to waste!

Thou might’st have seen thy kindred Shade before.

When, Bornio’s tale thy fix’d attention held;

I saw him leave his rank, by rage impell’d,

Survey thy form, and menace from the shore.

VI.

“No pious hand a kinsman’s blood repaid,

Still unaveng’d he walks, a gory Shade;

Thence swells his rage, and thence his sorrows flow!

Then deign those sympathizing tears to spare!”

In vain I pray’d, my words were lost in air,

Broke by new clamours from the gulph below.

VII.

Sublime I stood, above the dismal sound,

And long, loud shrieks the hearing seem’d to wound,

Stunn’d by the tumult of the Stygian throng;—

—Awhile it paus’d;—again distinct and clear,

The full, infernal choir assail’d the ear,

And Hell’s wide vault with execrations rung.

VIII.

My guarding hands the hearing sense defend,

And stooping down, I see from end to end

The various scene!—But not Sardinia’s strand,

Not all the pois’nous steams that August breeds,

Not all the plagues that haunt Maromma’s reeds,

Match’d the contagion of the Lazar band.

IX.

Pregnant with lep’rous scents, the loaded gale

Still breath’d infection round the dusky vale;

The dusky vale a gen’ral groan returns:

Stern Justice here the scourge in venom sleeps,

And deals her various plagues around the deeps,

Th’ impostor crew the sore affliction mourns.

O’er old Ægina thus, as Poets sing,

The Demon spread her pestilential wing;

While gasping 1ife, the trembling isle forsook;

’Till busy ants, by wondrous change endu’d

With human shape, the failing race renew’d,

And Man’s imperial form exulting took.

XI.

In putrid heaps dispers’d, the Lazar train,

With foul contagion fill the groaning plain,

And scarce we labour’d thro’ the noisome throng:

Some sat desponding, some with reptile pace

Dragg’d on their loaded limbs from place to place,

And some in sordid misery lay along.

XII.

Against each other press’d an hideous Pair,

With lep’rous limbs emboss’d, and matted hair,

As tiles contiguous fence the falling hail;

Nor plies the groom with more industrious speed

The grating comb on some distinguish’d steed;

Than those ill‑omen’d Fiends their limbs unscale.

XIII.

Thus flies the fenceful coat before the blade

From luscious bream or turbot disarray’d.

“ So may your hands the odious task sustain,”

The Mantuan cry’d, “ye Souls propitious! tell,

If any Florentine in durance dwell

Within the bound’ries of your sad domain.”

XIV.

Straight one of them reply’d, “I thy search is o’er;

Behold a sentenc’d Pair from Arno’s shore!

But who art thou! and why thy strange request?”

“I come,” the Mantuan cry’d, “by Heav’n’s command

To guard a mortal down the Stygian strand,

And show, in sad review, the tribes unblest.”

XV.

Shrieking, asunder part the hideous Pair;

And view me o’er with looks of wan despair,

And all the thronging Lazars croud around;

An hideous crew! the Mantuan saw my dread,

And “seize at once the moment given,” he said,

“To learn the wonders of the world profound.”

XVI.

Then, turning round, I thus the Pair address’d

“If still your name on Arno’s shore confest,

Survive the wreck of years, your crimes disclose

Nor tho’ the ignominious plague assail,

Your loaded limbs, and fill the tainted gale,

Disdain to tell the process of your woes.”

XVII.

“My birth Arezzo claims,” the first reply’d,

“I fell, to sooth a spurious minion’s pride:

A fond believing fool, whose mad desire

I mock’d with schemes of necromantic flight,

To raise on airy plumes his leaden weight,

His cruel father doom’d me to the fire!”

XVIII.

“But chemic arts my final sentence seal’d,

And Heav’n’s relentless doom my soul compell’d

To join the dark metallic tribe below.

Hail! hail, Siena! nurse of ev’ry crime,

Not deeper stains deform the barbarous clime,

Nor stigmatize the Gaul’s dishonour’d brow.”

XIX.

I spoke, ironic thus a lep’rous Shade,

“Young Stricca only, by his mates betray’d

To soul intemp’rate waste, and Colas name,

Great Chief! for culinary arts renown’d,

Whose poignant sauce the glutton tribe resound,

And Caccias bleeding vines exception claim.

XX.

“And let the vile Abbagliato go

In dark oblivion to the shades below,

With all his foul confed’rates of the stye!

There let them lie promiscuous in the pit,

Too low for Satire’s keenest shaft to hit,

Among the tribes of low intemp’rate joy.

XXI.

“Nor wonder in the world below to hear

Siena’s various crimes salute thine ear!

But view at leisure this disfigur’d face.

If sad Capocchio still thou deign’st to own,

For mystic arts of transmutation known,

Who lov’d with thee the secret World to trace.

XXII.

“How oft’, in native innocence of heart,

I saw you wonder at the mimic art!

—But soon my hand forsook the trivial toil,

For bolder frauds, and taught the baser ore

To match the genuine gold of India’s shore,

And fell a victim to the fatal guile.”

END OF THE TWENTY-NINTH CANTO.