Canto XX. Della Prima Cantica Di Danthe

Dante Alighieri

Di nuova pena mi convien far versi

Et dar materia al vigesimo canto

Della prima canzon che io sommersi.

Io ero gia disposto tutto quanto

A riguardar nello scoperto fondo

Che mi bagnava dangoscioso pianto.

Et vidi gente per lo vallon tondo

Venir tacendo et lagrimando al passo

Com sanno le letanie in questo mondo

Chomel viso miscese in lor piu basso

Mirabilmente apparve esser travolto

Ciaschun tral mento el principio del casso

Che dalle rene era tornato el volto :

Et indreieto venir lor convenia

Perchel veder dinanzi era lor tolto:

Forse per forza gia di parlasia

Si travolse chosi alchun deltutto:

Ma io nol vidi ne credo che sia.

Se dio ti lasci lector prender fructo

Di tua lectione hor pensa per te stesso:

Chomio potea tenere el viso asciucto

Quando la nostra imagine da presso

Vidi si torta chel pianto de glocchi

Le natiche bagnava per lo fesso.

Certo io piangea poggiato a un de rocchi

Del duro scoglo:siche la mia scorta

Mi dixe anchor se tu de glaltri sciocchi.

Qui regna lapieta quando e/ben morta.

Chi e piu scelerato dicholui

Chal giudicio di dio passion porta?

Driza latesta driza et vedi a cui

Saperse a glocchi de theban la terra

Perche gridavon tutti dove rui

Amphiarao perche lasci la guerra

Et non resto di ruinare avalle

Fina ad Minos che ciascheduno afferra.

Mira cha facto pecto delle spalle:

Perche volse veder troppo davante

Dirietro guarda et fu ritroso calle.

Vidi Tiresia che muto sembiante

Quando di maschio femmina divenne

Cambiandosi le mebra tutte quante

Et prima et poi ribatter gli convenne

Li due serpenti avvolti con lavergha:

Che rihavessi le maschili penne.

Arunte e quel chel ventre saglattergha

Che ne monti di luni dove ronca

Locarrarsce che disobto albergha

Hebbe tra bianchi marmi le spiloncha

Per sua dimora: ondaguardar lestelle

El mar non glera la veduta tronca.

Et quella che ricuopre le mammelle:

Che tu non vedi chon letreccie sciolte

Et ha di la ogni pilosa pelle.

Mantho fu che cerco per terre molte

Poscia si pose la dove nacquio.

Onde un poco mi piace che mascolte

Poscia chel padre suo divita uscio:

Et venne serva la cicta di Baccho:

Questa gran tempo per lo mondo gio.

Suso in italia bella giace un laco

Appie dellalpi che serran la magna

Soura tiralli cha nome benaco

Per mille fonti et piu credo si bagna

Tra garda et valomonica et apenneino

Nellacqua che nel decto laco stagna.

Luogo e nel mezo la dove trentino

Pastore et quel di Brescia el veronese

Segnar porria se fessi quel cammino:

Siede peschiera bello et forte arnese

Da frontegggiar bresciani et bergamaschi

Ove la lama intorno piu discese:

Lui convien che tutto quanto caschi

Cioche in grembo a Benaco star nonpo:

Et fassi fiumi giu ne verdi paschi

Tosto che lacqua acorrer mette co

Non piu benaco ma mencio si chiama

Final governo dovel cade in Po

Non molto ha corso che truova una lama

Per laqual si distende in la paluda:

Et suol di state talhor esser grama.

Quindi passano lavergine cruda

Vide terra nel mezo del pantano

Sanza cultura et dhabitanti nuda

Li per fuggire ogni confortio humano

Ristacte con suo servi a far sue arti:

Et vixevi et lascio suo corpo vano.

Glhuomini poi chentorno erono sparti

Faccolsero aquelluogo chera forte:

Per lo pantan chavea da tutte parti.

Fer la citta sopra quellossa morte

Et per colei che prima elluogho elesse

Mantova lappellar sanzaltra sorte.

Gia fur le genti sue dentro piu spesse

Pria che lamattia di chasalodi

Dapinamonte inganno ricevesse

Pero tassenno che se tu mai odi

Originar lamia terra altrimenti

La verita nulla menzognu frodi.

Et io maestro etuoi ragionamenti

Mi son si certi et prendon si mia fede:

Che claltri mi sarien carboni spenti:

Ma dimmi della gende che precede

Se tu ne vedi alchuno degno di nota

Che solo accio la mia mente risiede.

Allhor mi dixe quel che da la gota

Porge la barba in su le spalle prunne

Fu quando grecia fu di maschi vota

Sichappena rimaser per le cune

Augure et diede elpuncto col calcanta

In aulide ataglar la prima fune

Euripil hebbe nome et chosil canta

Lalta mia tragedia in alchuno locho

Ben lo sai tu che la sai tutta quanta.

Quellaltro che ne fianchi e/chosi poco.

Michele Scoto fu che veramente

Delle magiche frode seppe elgiocho:

Vedi guido bonacti vedi Asdente

Chavere atteso al chuoio et allo spagho

Hora vorrebbe ma indarno si pente?

Vedi le triste che lasciaron lagho

La spula elfuso: et fecersi indivine

Fecer malie con herbe et con imagho.

Ma vienne homai che gia tien le confine

Damendue glhemisperii et tocca londa

Sobto Sibilia Cayn et lespine

Et gia hiernocte fu la luna tonda

Ben ten de ricordar che non ti nocque

Alchunavolta per la selva fonda

Si miparlava et andavamo introcque.

Canto XX

translated by Clare Harmon

I made flesh of this song

from an alien pain.

                And so—

in these wrecked, many lines

I get myself ready

to see again how much,

all and how many

in the uncovered depth

below bathe in anguish.

In a barren gash

I saw people in

unprotesting silence—

in sorrowful weeping—

coming, passing, making

their dens in this world.

I lowered my gaze.

I looked at those below.

Each one is battered.

Each one is distorted

from below the eyes

to the body’s case.

Reigns twisted their faces.    D a v v e r o , s ì

They’re obligated

to come from behind, for

foresight was their affront.

                Maybe it was the violence of which I’ve spoken already

                that transfigures them like this, but I neither saw it nor

                do I think that it is so. Reader, if God marks you so,

                take the fruit this lesson offers and ask yourself how I

                could possibly keep my face dry when I saw our human

                image drawn like so (I couldn’t).

Look at them— their sorrow-

sodden, twisted fronts

make their asses shores

to their rivers of tears.

                I wept.

I wept as I reposed

on the rocks of the cliff.

I wept such that my wise

escort said to me:

Tell me you’re not like

these future-seeing fools?

It’s pity that lives here.

for who is more crude

than one who would impose

passion upon judgment?

Raise your head; raise your ears—

See that one over there    U n n a s c o n d a t o r e

to whom all the Thebans

screamed, ‘Where do you run to,

Amphiaraus? Why

abandon the war?’

And look now how he did

not quit until girding

Minos sends him di là.

Look how he is now

made for his visions—

Retro, bending, twisted.

Look there for Tiresias—

transmuter, shifter

of plumes by way of serpents;

seer by way of God.

                He saw.

Look there for Aruns

who divined from guts;

who homed in foothills

between marble and cave;

whose view of stars and sea

never could be cut.

                He saw, everything.

Look. That one who lets loose

and covers her tits

with tresses like a witch;       Yes, she’s twisted.

whose front-facing body

is turned; all pilled in hair—

That’s Manto. She searched

every land and then stopped

to stay where I was born.

                And so—

Listen as I tell a bit

to you of her account.

Tiresias made his life’s exit;

Bacchus’ city fell;

And she went on

a grand tour of the world.

Above in beautiful

Italy, at the foot

of the mountains that close

off our land; over

Tiralli, a lake lies

that has the name Benaco.

                I believe that one thousand springs or more all from its

                tranquil waters bathe the region from Garuda to Val

                Comonica.

Here at the midpoint,

there is a road for chance

where the holies of

Trento, of Brescia,

of Verona, too,

might meet to make a mass.

Stunning, strong, the fortress

Peschiera sits fronting.

There, where the lake’s shore

is most low the water falls

from the lake’s deep core

into rivers to make

green pastures below.    n o l o n g e r i t c a n s t a y

The water runs from its head

and is called no longer

Benaco, but Mencio

until it comes to

Governol where it falls

into the river Po.

Yet It doesn’t course far

before it comes to a plain

There, it spreads itself

into a wetland

which in summer is sick,

malarial and fetid.

Once, passing by, Manto    l a v e r g i n a c r u d a

saw this untilled land,

naked of inhabitants.

                And so—

There she fled human consort

to hermit here with her aides.

                And so—

There she came to make

all her darkest arts.

And when she died, she left

her soul-emptied body.

Later, the people

who were spread around

collected themselves

in her place, seeing it

fortified on every side

by swampland.

                And so—

They call the city Mantua;

they made it from her bones.

There, after expulsions

and after violence,

that city was left sparse.       Go ahead, ask me my sympathies.

You’d be admonished

should you ever believe

my city’s origin

otherwise. Those

tales defraud the truth.

And I to him: Your reason

is secure and faithful

such that any others

would be but spent coals.

                But now, I had to ask:

Who goes to and fro below

do you distinguish some?

Because my mind sets

upon this alone.

                And so—

Pointing, he said: This one—

with the beard that grows

from his cheeks to his back

was Eryplyus—          He lived in the time of war when Greece was emptied

                of its men save those in cradles.

an augur, who cut

the first ship’s moorings.

In my highest tragedy

I sang his song.

You should know it well,

you who know it all.

The other in the flanks—

so small and so thin—

was Michele Scotto

who knew the folly

of alchemical fraud.

See Guido Bonatti

See Asdente, who,

having seen the end

of his skin on the rope

wants too late to repent.

See the wicked unnamed    [    ]  [  ]

who abandoned the tools  [    ]    [  ]

    [    ]    [    ]       [       ]

of domestic craft    [    ]    [   ]     [    ]

to make divination    [    ][   ]   [    ][    ]

   [    ]      [        ][  ]       [      ]

who do ill with herb   [    ][    ][    ]    [    ]

and with image.    [      ]    [     ]

           [         ]         [   ]

Come on. Let’s go; the man

in the moon already

has his hands in land and wave.    The tide, the tide

Remember, last night?

In the dark wood,

the moon was full.

                So he spoke and we went as he did.

about the authors
Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was a poet and political theorist of the Italian peninsula. Dante is perhaps best known for his three-part epic, The Divine Comedy.

Other works by Dante Alighieri


Canto Tertio Della Prima Cantica

 

Clare Harmon

Clare Harmon

Clare Harmon is an interdisciplinary artist and literary translator completing a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota. Clare is a recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including a Fulbright to pursue archival research related to their dissertation in Naples, Italy. Clare has published translations of Dante’s Inferno in Poetry Magazine, FENCE, and Poetry Northwest. Clare is currently based in Montpellier, France.

Other works by Clare Harmon


Translator's Note