Canto XX. Della Prima Cantica Di Danthe
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
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.
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