# Inferno Canto 26

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-21 — 1 clipping.*

---

> Christianity Index  Divine Comedy Index  Previous: Inferno Canto 25  Next: Inferno Canto 27  
> 
> Canto XXVI
> 
> Argument
> 
>      Remounting by the steps, down which they have descended to the seventh
> gulf, they go forward to the arch that stretches over the eighth, and from
> thence behold numberless flames wherein are punished the evil counsellors,
> each flame containing a sinner, save one, in which were Diomede and Ulysses,
> the latter of whom relates the manner of his death.
> 
> Florence, exult! for thou so mightily
> Hast thriven, that o'er land and sea thy wings
> Thou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell.
> Among the plunderers, such the three I found
> Thy citizens; whence shame to me thy son,
> And no proud honour to thyself redounds.
> 
> But if our minds, when dreaming near the dawn,
> Are of the truth presageful, thou ere long
> Shalt feel what Prato[1] (not to say the rest)
> Would fain might come upon thee; and that chance
> Were in good time, if it befell thee now.
> Would so it were, since it must needs befall!
> For as time wears me, I shall grieve the more.
> 
> [1: "Shalt feel what Prato." The Poet prognosticates the calamities
> which were soon to befall his native city, and which, he says, even her
> nearest neighbor, Prato, would wish her. The calamities more particularly
> pointed at are said to be the fall of a wooden bridge over the Arno, in May,
> 1304, where a large multitude were assembled to witness a representation of
> hell and the infernal torments, in consequence of which accident many lives
> were lost; and a conflagration, that in the following month destroyed more
> than 1,700 houses. See G. Villani, Hist. lib. viii. c. lxx. and lxxi.]
> 
> We from the depth departed; and my guide
> Remounting scaled the flinty steps, which late
> We downward traced, and drew me up the steep.
> Pursuing thus our solitary way
> 
> Among the crags and splinters of the rock,
> Sped not our feet without the help of hands.
> 
> Then sorrow seized me, which e'en now revives,
> As my thought turns again to what I saw,
> And, more than I am wont, I rein and curb
> The powers of nature in me, lest they run
> Where Virtue guides not; that, if aught of good
> My gentle star or something better gave me,
> I envy not myself the precious boon.
> 
> As in that season, when the sun least veils
> His face that lightens all, what time the fly
> Gives way to the shrill gnat, the peasant then,
> Upon some cliff reclined, beneath him sees
> Fire - flies innumerous spangling o'er the vale,
> Vineyard or tilth, where his day - labor lies;
> With flames so numberless throughout its space
> Shone the eighth chasm, apparent, when the depth
> Was to my view exposed. As he, whose wrongs
> The bears avenged, as its departure saw
> Elijah's chariot, when the steeds erect
> Raised their steep flight for heaven; his eyes meanwhile,
> Straining pursued them, till the flame alone,
> Upsoaring like a misty speck, he kenn'd:
> E'en thus along the gulf moves every flame,
> A sinner so enfolded close in each,
> That none exhibits token of the theft.
> 
> Upon the bridge I forward bent to look
> And grasp'd a flinty mass, or else had fallen,
> Though push'd not from the height. The guide, who mark'd
> How I did gaze attentive, thus began:
> "Within these ardours are the spirits; each
> Swatched in confining fire." "Master! thy word,"
> I answer'd, "hath assured me; yet I deem'd
> Already of the truth, already wish'd
> To ask thee who is in yon fire, that comes
> So parted at the summit, as it seem'd
> Ascending from that funeral pile[2] where lay
> The Theban brothers." He replied: "Within,
> 
> [2: The flame is said to have divided the bodies of Eteocles and
> Polynices, as if conscious of the enmity that actuated them while living.]
> 
> Ulysses there and Diomede endure
> Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now
> Together hasting, as erewhile to wrath
> These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore
> The ambush of the horse,[3] that open'd wide
> A portal for the goodly seed to pass,
> Which sow'd imperial Rome; nor less the guile
> Lament they, whence, of her Achilles 'reft,
> Deidamia yet in death complains.
> And there is rued the stratagem that Troy
> Of her Palladium spoil'd" - "If they have power
> Of utterance from within these sparks," said I,
> "O master! think my prayer a thousand - fold
> In repetition urged, that thou vouchsafe
> To pause till here the horned flame arrive.
> See, how toward it with desires I bend."
> 
> [3: The wooden horse that caused Aeneas to quit Troy and seek his
> fortune in Italy, where his descendants founded Rome.]
> 
> He thus: "Thy prayer is worthy of much praise,
> And I accept it therefore; but do thou
> Thy tongue refrain: to question them be mine;
> For I divine thy wish: and they perchance,
> For they were Greeks,[4] might shun discourse with thee."
> 
> [4: Perhaps implying arrogance.]
> 
> When there the flame had come, where time and place
> Seem'd fitting to my guide, he thus began:
> "O ye, who dwell two spirits in one fire!
> If, living, I of you did merit aught,
> Whate'er the measure were of that desert,
> When in the world my lofty strain I pour'd,
> Move ye not on, till one of you unfold
> In what clime death o'ertook him self - destroy'd."
> 
> Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn
> Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire
> That labors with the wind, then to and fro
> Wagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds,
> Threw out its voice, and spake: "When I escaped
> From Circe, who beyond a circling year
> Had held me near Caieta by her charms,
> Ere thus Aeneas yet had named the shore;
> Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
> 
> Of my old father, nor return of love,
> That should have crown'd Penelope with joy,
> Could overcome in me the zeal I had
> To explore the world, and search the ways of life,
> Man's evil and his virtue. Forth I sail'd
> Into the deep illimitable main,
> With but one bark, and the small faithful band
> That yet cleaved to me. As Iberia far,
> Far as Marocco, either shore I saw,
> And the Sardinian and each isle beside
> Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age
> Were I and my companions, when we came
> To the strait pass,[5] where Hercules ordain'd
> The boundaries not to be o'erstepp'd by man.
> The walls of Seville to my right I left,
> On the other hand already Ceuta past.
> 'O brothers!' I began, 'who to the west
> Through perils without number now have reach'd;
> To this the short remaining watch, that yet
> Our senses have to wake, refuse not proof
> Of the unpeopled world, following the track
> Of Phoebus. Call to mind from whence ye sprang:
> Ye were not form'd to live the life of brutes,
> But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.'
> With these few words I sharpen'd for the voyage
> The mind of my associates, that I then
> Could scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn
> Our poop we turn'd, and for the witless flight
> Made our oars wings, still gaining on the left.
> Each star of the other pole night now beheld,
> And ours so low, that from the ocean floor
> It rose not. Five times reillumed, as oft
> Vanish'd the light from underneath the moon,
> Since the deep way we enter'd, when from far
> Appear'd a mountain dim,[6] loftiest methought
> 
> [5: The Strait of Gibraltar.]
> 
> [6: The mountain of Purgatory. - Among various opinions respecting
> the situation of the terrestrial paradise, Peitro Lombardo relates, that "it
> was separated by a long space, either of sea or land, from the regions
> inhabited by men, and placed in the ocean, reaching as far as to the luner
> circle, so that the waters of the deluge did not reach it." - Sent. lib. ii.
> dist. 17.]
> 
> Of all I e'er beheld. Joy seized us straight;
> But soon to mourning changed. From the new land
> A whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side
> Did strike the vessel. Thrice it whirl'd her round
> With all the waves; the fourth time lifted up
> The poop, and sank the prow: so fate decreed:
> And over us the booming billow closed."[7]
> 
> [7: "Closed." Venturi refers to Pliny and Solinus for the opinion
> that Ulysses was the founder of Lisbon, from whence he thinks it was easy for
> the fancy of a poet to send him on yet further enterprises. The story (which
> it is not unlikely that our author borrowed from some legend of the Middle
> Ages) may have taken its rise partly from the obscure oracle returned by the
> ghost of Tiresias to Ulysses (eleventh book of the Odyssey), and partly from
> the fate which there was reason to suppose had befallen some adventurous
> explorers of the Atlantic Ocean.]
>
> — *Inferno Canto 26*