April 13 - Canto XXIII.5

I had to write my own canto of The Inferno for my english class.  This is what followed.

In that spell of the summer

when Jupiter exalts a change in season

and the days drag on in the heat that lasts long into the night,

when the rolling hills look to the sun

to make the image of its surface on their faces –

his image soon makes bare earth of fertile fields –

the men of country will look to the heavy blue sky

and point to the faintest wisp of cloud

knowing a storm will soon be upon them

discerning the hint of grey, they hurry back indoors –

how they grumble at all the things they meant to do with this time! –

to wait out the still hidden storm.

What science they practice on those blue skies

eludes those men who do not breath the air beneath them.

Indeed, soon the dark clouds roll across the horizon,

accompanied by the roar of lightning,

to douse the land and mark the rise of a water sign,

only to leave as quickly as it sprung upon the country.

In such a way was my master’s face darkened

by the words of those heavy, gilded men as I followed

his esteemed footsteps in the direction of the next along our route.

As we walked, a sound accosted my ears

like the great lungs of a giant

sighing as though afflicted with a grave sadness.

And I said to my leader:  “Master, what is the source

of this noise so different from the other sounds of Hell?”

Thus he said to me: “Wait, and you will see.”

Surmounting the ridge, a sight met my eyes

unlike any I had yet seen

on this infernal voyage.

We came upon a massive kettle lake

with acrid, saline steam rising from it’s roiling surface.

In this vast sea, we saw new faces both grinning and sobbing.

The swimmers tossed upon the boiling waves

pulled down by an unseen force, as if they fainted

when they reached the surface.

Tears streamed from the eyes of some,

feeding the waters so that their level did not diminish

in spite of the steam that rubbed raw the faces of my master and I.

Others were forced into a grotesque grin

by the devils flying above who caught their cheeks in their hooked hands

and tore them, sharpening the water with their blood.

“Master,” I asked, “what souls are here cooked?

What have they done to make cry and sigh so?

And what sin have those who are forced to grin committed?”

“These are those who in life who, either with tears or smiling,

forced others to their will by feigning sacrifice.

The ones who grin are those who cheerfully gave others the knife

asking them to attack and by doing so forced them not to.

The ones who cry are those who sacrificed with sighs and fainting,

who by doing so seemed pathetic and beguiled the pity of their friends.”

As my master explained, one sinner found her way to the bank

reaching for my hem as tears made her eyes

into a picture of the place in which she was punished.

A rasping sigh escaped her mouth, like the hiss of a serpent.

as she was pulled back by an unseen power, I kicked away her hands and

the long tendrils of her hair continue the quest of her hands from moments ago.

“Can we not speak to these sinners?” I asked my guide.

“They cannot speak to us.  They are deprived of the thing by which they

defrauded those who loved them, leaving them only to sigh as you see they do.”

Anonymous and disfigured as these condemned souls were,

I could not discern a face among the many;

nor could I discern station, family, or profession.

“Is there any you can pick out?” I pleaded to my master

“There are so many, surely you know one.”

Said he: “I will try, as you say there are many and they dart in and out of view”

As he scanned the seething multitudes,

one was pulled by the left cheek into the air,

just as quickly, she flailing and bloodied returned to the waters.

“That!” cried my master “did you see she who fell so recently?

She was one who played her games on her children,

so that they could not tell her suffering from that of St. Perpetua or St. Felicitas.

‘Cheerfully, she told her children of her burdens

describing her sacrifice in detail that she made for her joys.

As they cried for her, she opened her arms and bathed in their tears.

‘Here, she bathes in true suffering.  Condemned

to wear that smile for eternity.  The same one she flashed before her cult

she now has carved into her cheeks by the devils here.”

“That one whose hair reached out like a thousand hands behind her,

I believe I recognize her.  Know you her story?”

I asked, watching in dread of her return.

“I did not see her, but I know the one you describe.

She was a false friend to many who cared deeply for her.

She deceived them, giving them the knife and the power to dig it in.

‘She refused to express her desires, instead coding her meaning and leaving it to be found

and was disappointed when no one cared to find it.

She played upon the hearts of her friends, and caused them great pain.”

“I am glad, then, that I kicked her away.”

I responded, turning my eyes from the pool,

“I have known too many like her that I do not want to meet another.”

At this my guide smiled, the darkness long banished from his visage.

“Come,” he said “we have many more to see,

these here do not merit any more of our concern.”

The descent to the next pocket was not one for those weakened

either by sin or by boiling.  I clambered down the ridge,

leaving those souls who overburden themselves

following the path beat before me by pious heroes and by my esteemed master.