But longer is the time I've been immerst,

And borne my heels above my head, and fried, 80 Then he shall stand with ruddy feet reverst.

For after him, with works more darkly dyed,

Will come a shepherd from the westward land,

That's fit to cover him and me beside.

In him shall Maccabean Jason stand

Renewed, and like the king whom Jason had,

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So France's unto this man shall be bland."
Hereon I may have been too bold and mad,
Perhaps, when I replied in strains like these,
"Pray tell me now what price our Master bade

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St. Peter yield him, ere he gave the keys

Into his keeping; nay, but sure he said, "Follow thou me,' and asked none other fees. Nor Peter nor the rest with Matthew pled

For gold or silver, when upon him fell The lot that wicked one had forfeited.

Then stay down there, for thou art punished well,

And keep the money close that ill was gained, That made thee so against king Charles to swell;

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And were it not that I am still refrained,

By reverence for the keys of supreme grace,
That thou hast in the pleasant life retained,
I'd find still harsher words not out of place,
Because your avarice makes the world to grieve,
Trampling the good and lifting up the base.
You shepherds did the Evangelist perceive,
When she, that on the waters keepeth state,
Appeared in whoredom to the kings to cleave,
She that had sevenfold heads congenerate,

And the ten horns in her approval told,
So long as virtue satisfied her mate.
Ye've made you gods of silver and of gold,
And from the idolators how differ ye?
By serving more than they a hundredfold.
O Constantine! what evil do we see,

Not from thy faith, but from that dowry sprung,
Which the first wealthy pontiff had from thee?"

Such were the notes that over him I sung,

When or by anger or by conscience prest,

Full violently with both his feet he flung.

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105

110

115

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I trow I pleased my master, he confest

In every feature ever such content,

To hear the words I voiced from Truth's behest.
And therewith round me both his arms he bent,

And quite upon his breast when I was cast,
Remounted by the way of his descent;
Nor yet was wearied, clasping me so fast,

But thus unto the bridge's top he strode,
That from the fourth unto the fifth mole past;
And thereon laid he softly down his load,

Full soft above the untrimmed and craggy cope,

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130

That would have made for goats an uncouth road;
Then did another vale before us ope.

CANTO XX.

Now to new pains must I accord my verses,

And matter for the twentieth canto strew
Of my first lay, which the submerged rehearses.
Already had I wholly fixed my view,

The depth of that uncovered gulf to sound,
That sheddings of distressful tears embrew.
Then saw I people through that valley round

Advance, in weeping silence, at the pace That men chaunt litanies above the ground; And lower down as I discerned the place,

They all appeared distorted wondrously Betwixt the chin and bosom; for the face Of each one from the reins was turned awry,

And backwards it behoved them to proceed; For none in front had power to cast his eye.

5

10

15

A man by force of palsy may indeed

Have so been wrung throughout against the grain, But I've not seen, nor is't within my creed,

O Reader, an' if God will have thee gain

Fruit from thy study, let thy own heart show

20

If dry-faced any more I could remain,
When near me I beheld our image so
Distorted, that their eyes the tears allow
Adown their backs into the cleft to flow.
I wept most surely, pressing with my brow
A crag, that from the rugged rock extends,
Till my guide said, "Like all the fools art thou!
Here liveth piety when pity ends;

Can any man be guilty more than he
Whose bias with the doom of God contends?

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30

Lift up thy head, lift up thy head, and see

For whom the earth was opened, making call The Thebans, 'Why dost from the battle flee, O Amphiaraus? whither wilt thou fall?'

And shattering down he went without a stay To Minos, who takes iron hold on all.