I would press out the juice of my conception
  More fully; but because I have them not,
  Not without fear I bring myself to speak;

For 'tis no enterprise to take in jest,
  To sketch the bottom of all the universe,
  Nor for a tongue that cries Mamma and Babbo.

O rabble ill-begotten above all,
  Who're in the place to speak of which is hard,
  'Twere better ye had here been sheep or goats!

When we were down within the darksome well,
  Beneath the giant's feet, but lower far,
  And I was scanning still the lofty wall, 

Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me
  And underfoot a lake, that from the frost
  The semblance had of glass, and not of water.

So thick a veil ne'er made upon its current
  In winter-time Danube in Austria,
  Nor there beneath the frigid sky the Don, 

And as to croak the frog doth place himself
  With muzzle out of water,--when is dreaming
  Of gleaning oftentimes the peasant-girl,--

Livid, as far down as where shame appears,
  Were the disconsolate shades within the ice,
  Setting their teeth unto the note of storks.

When round about me somewhat I had looked,
  I downward turned me, and saw two so close,
  The hair upon their heads together mingled.

"Ye who so strain your breasts together, tell me,"
  I said, "who are you;" and they bent their necks,
  And when to me their faces they had lifted,

Clamp never bound together wood with wood
  So strongly; whereat they, like two he-goats,
  Butted together, so much wrath o'ercame them.

And one, who had by reason of the cold
  Lost both his ears, still with his visage downward,
  Said: "Why dost thou so mirror thyself in us?

They from one body came, and all Caina
  Thou shalt search through, and shalt not find a shade
  More worthy to be fixed in gelatine;

Not he in whom were broken breast and shadow
  At one and the same blow by Arthur's hand;
  Focaccia not; not he who me encumbers

And that thou put me not to further speech,
  Know that I Camicion de' Pazzi was,
  And wait Carlino to exonerate me."

Then I beheld a thousand faces, made
  Purple with cold; whence o'er me comes a shudder,
  And evermore will come, at frozen ponds. 

Whether 'twere will, or destiny, or chance,
  I know not; but in walking 'mong the heads
  I struck my foot hard in the face of one.

Weeping he growled: "Why dost thou trample me?
  Unless thou comest to increase the vengeance
  of Montaperti, why dost thou molest me?"

The Leader stopped; and to that one I said
  Who was blaspheming vehemently still:
  "Who art thou, that thus reprehendest others?"

"Now who art thou, that goest through Antenora
  Smiting," replied he, "other people's cheeks,
  So that, if thou wert living, 'twere too much?"

And he to me: "For the reverse I long;
  Take thyself hence, and give me no more trouble;
  For ill thou knowest to flatter in this hollow."

Then by the scalp behind I seized upon him,
  And said: "It must needs be thou name thyself,
  Or not a hair remain upon thee here."

I had his hair in hand already twisted,
  And more than one shock of it had pulled out,
  He barking, with his eyes held firmly down,

When cried another: "What doth ail thee, Bocca?
  Is't not enough to clatter with thy jaws,
  But thou must bark? what devil touches thee?"

"Begone," replied he, "and tell what thou wilt,
  But be not silent, if thou issue hence,
  Of him who had just now his tongue so prompt;

He weepeth here the silver of the French;
  'I saw,' thus canst thou phrase it, 'him of Duera
  There where the sinners stand out in the cold.'

Gianni del Soldanier, I think, may be
  Yonder with Ganellon, and Tebaldello
  Who oped Faenza when the people slep."

Already we had gone away from him,
  When I beheld two frozen in one hole,
  So that one head a hood was to the other;

Not in another fashion Tydeus gnawed
  The temples of Menalippus in disdain,
  Than that one did the skull and the other things.

"O thou, who showest by such bestial sign
  Thy hatred against him whom thou art eating,
  Tell me the wherefore," said I, "with this compact, 

If that wherewith I speak be not dried up."