Woe to thee, Simon Magus, and to his wretched followers, who the things of God, which should be wedded unto goodness, do prostitute for gold and silver in adultery. The trumpet must sound: theirs is the third chasm. Upon the vault that impends over the centre of the foss, Dante praises the art that allots a just meed even in the evil world. Livid stone, sides and bottom, is full of equal circular apertures, no larger than the baptismal fonts in Saint John's fair dome, one of which he broke some years past to save a whelming infant, and be this a seal to undeceive whoever doubts the motive. From every mouth emerge a sinner's feet and legs as high as the calf; the rest is hid. On either foot the soles burn, so the joints glance as if they would snap cords. Flame glides from heel to point as on unctuous matter, scarcely touching where it moves.
Who is he, glancing in fiercer agony, on whom a ruddier flame doth prey? Virgil will carry him down where the slope least falls, and the spirit shall tell his wrongs. Dante: thou art my lord; what silence hides, thou knowest. They descend a narrow strait. Whoe'er thou art, sad spirit, thus reversed, and as a stake driven in the soil, if thou be able, utter forth thy voice. Dante stands like the friar that shrives a wretch already fixed. The shout: Ha, already standest there, O Boniface? By many a year the writing played me false. So early dost thou surfeit with the wealth for which thou fearedst not in guile to take the lovely lady, and then mangle her? Dante does not pierce the drift. Virgil: tell him quick, I am not he. The spirit wrenches his feet and sighs. In the mighty mantle I was robed, son of a she-bear, so eager to advance my whelps that there I stowed my having in my purse, and here myself. Under my head are dragged my predecessors in simony. I also low shall fall when he comes for whom I took thee. Already I have stood longer than he shall stand; after him a shepherd without law from the west, a new Jason, shall cover both, favoured as that priest was by his king, by France's monarch.
Dante answers, and knows not if he too far presumed. What treasures did our Lord demand of Peter when he put the keys in his charge? Surely no more but Follow me. Nor gold nor silver of Matthias. Abide thou then; look well to that ill-gotten coin which against Charles thy hardihood inspired. If reverence of the keys restrained me not, severer speech might use. Your avarice o'ercasts the world with mourning, treading the good and raising bad men up. Of gold and silver ye have made your god. Ah, Constantine, to how much ill gave birth not thy conversion but that plenteous dower which the first wealthy Father gained from thee. Whether wrath or conscience, the spirit spins on either sole. Virgil listens with composed lip, well pleased, then catches Dante in both arms, lifts him, and retraces the descent, not weary, until the summit of the rock, a path not easy for a clambering goat. Thence to his view another vale appeared.
