The flame of Ulysses stills its light and passes. Another follows, a confused sound at its top. As the Sicilian bull rebellowed with the voice of the man who first was cooked inside it, so the words find no avenue, then turn into the flame's own tongue. The spirit heard Virgil's Lombard leave-taking. Pause, he asks, and tell me if those who in Romagna dwell have peace or war. Of those mountains was I, betwixt Urbino and the height whence Tiber unlocks his flood. Virgil: speak thou; he is a Latian. Dante's catalogue is ready: never was Romagna without war in her tyrants' bosoms, but open war there left I none. Ravenna under Polenta's eagle, the mastiffs of Verruchio, the inconstant lion, Savio living 'twixt tyrant power and liberty. Now tell us who art thou. So may thy name still rear its forehead high.
If I did think my answer were to one who ever could return unto the world, this flame should rest unshaken. But never has any from this depth found his upward way, so he answers, nor fears infamy. A man of arms at first, I clothed me then in good Saint Francis' girdle, hoping so to have made amends. The hope had failed not, but that the high priest again seduced me into sin. Less the lion than the fox: all ways of winding subtlety, until the sound reached the world's limit. At the hour when each behoves to lower sails and gather in the lines, he rued what had pleased him, and turned to repentance. Wretch that I was, and well it had bested me. The chief of the new Pharisees, waging war near the Lateran against Christians, reverenced neither his charge nor the cord. As Constantine besought Sylvester, so this man besought a fox to cure the fever of his pride. From thy heart banish fear: of all offence I hitherto absolve thee. Teach me so to execute that Penestrino cumber earth no more. Heaven I have power to shut and open: the keys are twain. Of silence as more perilous the fox deemed, and answered: Father, since thou washest me clear of that guilt wherein I now must fall, large promise with performance scant shall make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.
When he was numbered with the dead, Saint Francis came; but a cherub dark met him: wrong me not; he is mine, for the deceitful counsel which he gave. Ever since I watched him, hovering at his hair. No power can the impenitent absolve; nor to repent and will at once consist, by contradiction absolute forbid. Thou haply thought'st me not a disputant in logic so exact. Minos twines eight times the tail: this is a guilty soul that in the fire must vanish. The flame in dolour parts, writhing its sharp horn. They go onward to the arch that overhangs those who load them with committed sin.
Coming Up in Chapter 28
No tongue could equal the ninth chasm. A man will rip his breast and name himself Mohammed, and a headless trunk will carry its own head like a lantern, asking if any torment is more terrible.
