CANTO XXI.
Eighth Circle: fifth pit: barrators.—A magistrate of Lucca.—The Malebranche.—Parley with them.
So from bridge to bridge we went, speaking other things, which my Comedy careth not to sing, and held the summit, when we stopped to see the next cleft of Malebolge and the next vain lamentations; and I saw it wonderfully dark.
As in the Arsenal of the Venetians, in winter, the sticky pitch for smearing their unsound vessels is boiling, because they cannot go to sea, and, instead thereof, one builds him a new bark, and one caulks the sides of that which hath made many a voyage; one hammers at the prow, and one at the stern; another makes oars, and another twists the cordage; and one the foresail and the mainsail patches,—so, not by fire, but by divine art, a thick pitch was boiling there below, which belimed the bank on every side. I saw it, but saw not in it aught but the bubbles which the boiling raised, and all of it swelling up and again sinking compressed.
While I was gazing down there fixedly, my Leader, saying, “Take heed! take heed!” drew me to himself from the place where I was standing. Then I turned as one who is slow to see what it behoves him to fly, and whom a sudden fear unnerves, and delays not to depart in order to see. And I saw behind us a black devil come running up along the crag. Ah! how fell he was in aspect, and how rough he seemed to me in action, with wings open, and light upon his feet! His shoulder, which was sharp and high, was laden by a sinner with both haunches, the sinew of whose feet he held clutched. “O Malebranche[1] of our bridge,” he said, “lo, one of the Ancients of Saint Zita[2] put him under, for I return again to that city, which I have furnished well with them; every man there is a barrator,[3] except Bonturo:[4] there, for money, of No they make Ay.” He hurled him down, and along the hard crag he turned, and never mastiff loosed was in such haste to follow a thief.
[1] Malebranche means Evil-claws.
[2] One of the chief magistrates of Lucca, whose special protectress was Santa Zita.
[3] A corrupt official, selling justice or office for bribes; in general, a peculator or cheat.
[4] Ironical.
That one sank under, and came up back uppermost, but the demons that had shelter of the bridge cried out, “Here the Holy Face[1] avails not; here one swims otherwise than in the Serchio;[2] therefore, if thou dost not want our grapples, make no show above the pitch.” Then they struck him with more than a hundred prongs, and said, “Covered must thou dance here, so that, if thou canst, thou mayst swindle secretly.” Not otherwise cooks make their scullions plunge the meat with their hooks into the middle of the cauldron, so that it may not float.