So reft of reason Athamas became,
  That, seeing his own wife with children twain
  Walking encumbered upon either hand,

He cried: "Spread out the nets, that I may take
  The lioness and her whelps upon the passage;"
  And then extended his unpitying claws,

And at the time when fortune downward hurled
  The Trojan's arrogance, that all things dared,
  So that the king was with his kingdom crushed,

Hecuba sad, disconsolate, and captive,
  When lifeless she beheld Polyxena,
  And of her Polydorus on the shore 

But not of Thebes the furies nor the Trojan
  Were ever seen in any one so cruel
  In goading beasts, and much more human members,

As I beheld two shadows pale and naked,
  Who, biting, in the manner ran along
  That a boar does, when from the sty turned loose. 

And the Aretine, who trembling had remained,
  Said to me: "That mad sprite is Gianni Schicchi,
  And raving goes thus harrying other people."

"O," said I to him, "so may not the other
  Set teeth on thee, let it not weary thee
  To tell us who it is, ere it dart hence." 

She came to sin with him after this manner,
  By counterfeiting of another's form;
  As he who goeth yonder undertook,

That he might gain the lady of the herd,
  To counterfeit in himself Buoso Donati,
  Making a will and giving it due form."

I saw one made in fashion of a lute,
  If he had only had the groin cut off
  Just at the point at which a man is forked.

The heavy dropsy, that so disproportions
  The limbs with humours, which it ill concocts,
  That the face corresponds not to the belly,

"O ye, who without any torment are,
  And why I know not, in the world of woe,"
  He said to us, "behold, and be attentive

Unto the misery of Master Adam;
  I had while living much of what I wished,
  And now, alas! a drop of water crave. 

Ever before me stand, and not in vain;
  For far more doth their image dry me up
  Than the disease which strips my face of flesh.

The rigid justice that chastises me
  Draweth occasion from the place in which
  I sinned, to put the more my sighs in flight. 

But if I here could see the tristful soul
  Of Guido, or Alessandro, or their brother,
  For Branda's fount I would not give the sight.

One is within already, if the raving
  Shades that are going round about speak truth;
  But what avails it me, whose limbs are tied?

Seeking him out among this squalid folk,
  Although the circuit be eleven miles,
  And be not less than half a mile across.

For them am I in such a family;
  They did induce me into coining florins,
  Which had three carats of impurity." 

"I found them here," replied he, "when I rained
  Into this chasm, and since they have not turned,
  Nor do I think they will for evermore.

One the false woman is who accused Joseph,
  The other the false Sinon, Greek of Troy;
  From acute fever they send forth such reek."

It gave a sound, as if it were a drum;
  And Master Adam smote him in the face,
  With arm that did not seem to be less hard,

Saying to him: "Although be taken from me
  All motion, for my limbs that heavy are,
  I have an arm unfettered for such need." 

The dropsical: "Thou sayest true in that;
  But thou wast not so true a witness there,
  Where thou wast questioned of the truth at Troy."

"If I spake false, thou falsifiedst the coin,"
  Said Sinon; "and for one fault I am here,
  And thou for more than any other demon."

"Rueful to thee the thirst be wherewith cracks
  Thy tongue," the Greek said, "and the putrid water
  That hedges so thy paunch before thine eyes."

Then the false-coiner: "So is gaping wide
  Thy mouth for speaking evil, as 'tis wont;
  Because if I have thirst, and humour stuff me

In listening to them was I wholly fixed,
  When said the Master to me: "Now just look,
  For little wants it that I quarrel with thee."

When him I heard in anger speak to me,
  I turned me round towards him with such shame
  That still it eddies through my memory. 

Such I became, not having power to speak,
  For to excuse myself I wished, and still
  Excused myself, and did not think I did it.

"Less shame doth wash away a greater fault,"
  The Master said, "than this of thine has been;
  Therefore thyself disburden of all sadness,