Canto XXIX

had their arrows barbed, Whereat mine ears I covered with my hands. What pain would be, if from the hospitals Of Valdichiana, ’twixt July and September, And of Maremma and Sardinia All the diseases in one moat were gathered, Such was it here, and such a stench came from it As from putrescent limbs is wont to issue. We had descended on the furthest bank From the long crag, upon the left hand still, And then more vivid was my power of sight Down tow’rds the bottom, where the ministress Of the high Lord, Justice infallible, Punishes forgers, which she here records. I do not think a sadder sight to see Was in Aegina the whole people sick, (When was the air so full of pestilence, The animals, down to the little worm, All fell, and afterwards the ancient people, According as the poets have affirmed, Were from the seed of ants restored again,) Than was it to behold through that dark valley The spirits languishing in divers heaps. This on the belly, that upon the back One of the other lay, and others crawling Shifted themselves along the dismal road. We step by step went onward without speech, Gazing upon and listening to the sick Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies. I saw two sitting leaned against each other, As leans in heating platter against platter, From head to foot bespotted o’er with scabs; And never saw I plied a currycomb By stable-boy for whom his master waits, Or him who keeps awake unwillingly, As everyone was plying fast the bite Of nails upon himself, for the great rage Of itching which no other succor had. And the nails downward with them dragged the scab, In fashion as a knife the scales of bream, Or any other fish that has them largest. “O thou, that with thy fingers dost dismail thee,” Began my Leader unto one of them, “And makest of them pincers now and then, Tell me if any Latian is with those Who are herein; so may thy nails suffice thee To all eternity unto this work.” “Latians are we, whom thou so wasted seest, Both of us here,” one weeping made reply; “But who art thou, that questionest about us?” And said the Guide: “One am I who descends Down with this living man from cliff to cliff, And I intend to show Hell unto him.” Then broken was their mutual support, And