Dante Inferno Canto 25 translated by David Bruce Gain

The thief shrieked with thumbs held in fists on high:

"A fig for you, God; go get stuffed, say I".
At once my hate for serpents passed away,
When one gave his neck a coiled snake display,
As if to say: "That`s all you`re going to say".
Between the two (another wound around
His arms) he froze, he was so tightly bound.
Only Pistoia`s ashes would suffice.
Her own surpasses e`en her founder`s vice.
No other soul in hell, e`en he who fell
From Thebes` high walls, hated his God so well.
With that he fled; a raging Centaur came,
Roaring: "Where is that beast whom none can tame?"
His horse, to where it was of human form,
Outdid e`en Maremma in serpent swarm.
At his neck a wide~winged dragon lay,
Spitting fire at whoever came his way.
My guide: "Aventine Cacus, fain to slake
His thirst with blood full fit to fill a lake,
He and his brothers walked not the same way ~
His neighbour`s kine were made his cunning prey.
His life of crime was well and truly done
When Hercules and his huge club had fun
With five score blows of which he felt but one".
`twas this he said. Where the Centaur had been
There were three spirits beneath us, unseen,
Had we not heard them shout: "What is your name?"
Our talk stopped short; they were now our sole claim.
One said: "Where`s Cianfa gone?" I`d known none,
But now at last I knew the name of one.
I`d fain my guide pay th` attention he owes;
Finger on chin, I pointed to my nose.
Reader, no wonder you think I deceive
When I, the witness, can barely believe.
A serpent with six feet shot up to haul
One of these creatures, holding him with all.
It grabbed his arms and stomach in its paws
And clamped his cheeks in turn in its strong jaws.
Its hindfeet thrust its tail between his thighs
So it could come out behind him and rise.
Twining of tree and ivy is the least
Of twinings compared to that hideous beast.
Like wax, their shape and hue mixed more and more;
Neither was the one he had been before,
Like the brown that creeps before a black fume
That is the slow burning white page`s doom.
The other two, who`d watched this being done,
Both cried: "O Agnel, see what`s now begun
Because you are now neither two nor one!"
Their two heads had by now begun to lose
Their own once separate features and to fuse.
Four arms were four blurred bobs; what once had been
Legs, paunch, chest, grew limbs never ere now seen.
Each former likeness was now quite undone;
Each seemed to be both and yet neither one.
This blob left at the reverse of a run.
As a hedge~seeking lizard of fleet feet,
Stung by the cruel lash of the dog~day`s heat,
Zips like a lightning flash across the street,
So th` other two saw, rushing at them to take
Their guts, a raging peppercorn~black snake.
It bit one where an embryo draws his food,
Then fell back before him and lay there slewed.
Bit, he stood still, speechless before the heap,
Yawning as if fevered or craving sleep.
They stared, one with wound and one with mouth spume,
And mingled indifferently fume with fume.
Let Nasidius and Sabellus be mute;
Let Lucan hear what I have still to suit.
Though Arethusa turned into a spring,
Cadmus into a snake, this does not bring
Envy of Ovid, any suffering,
Since he never e`er undertook to make
A change of form by mutual give and take,
As happened here; its tail forked for the snake,
The wounded sinner`s feet both coalesced;
The legs with both the thighs were both compressed
And in a short time fused; the join, unseen,
Displayed no signs of ever having been;
All the while the cloven tail was embossed
With features that the other one had lost;
Its skin was soft, the other`s was crisscrossed.
I saw the man`s arms, once long, minimize,
The beast`s front feet stretch the man`s old size;
The beast`s hind feet then twined around like eels
And turned into the member man conceals
While the man`s member grew two legs with heels.
Smoke causes their colours to interrun
And strips the head~of ~hair where there was one,
Adding a head~of ~hair where there was none;
The one stood up, th` other fell down, without
Turning howe`er the baleful lamps about
Which made each one assume the other`s snout.
Th` erect one`s snout`s now short; a round face appears
And this same face, once long, now round, sprouts ears.
Part of what stays in front makes a nose rise,
And lips to puff out to the normal size.
The prostrate creature sees his face outspread
And, too, his ears withdraw into his head
The way a snail withdraws into his shed.
The tongue, once one piece and able to talk,
Divides, while the other one heals his fork.
The smoke subsides. The soul now made a brute
Makes, with hisses, the valley floor his route,
The other close behind him, far from mute.
He straight, turning on him his new formed back.
Told th` other: "Bosco will soon have the knack
Of crawling as I crawled, around the track".
Thus I saw the souls of the seventh trail
Change and interchange; if my pen should fail
Let pardon from this newness then prevail.
And though this spectacle confused my eyes
They weren`t so hid I could not recognize
That one was Puccio Sciancato; only he
Was not transformed, of the original three.
The other was Gaville`s catastrophe.