I saw the livid stone, throughout the sides
And in its bottom full of apertures,
All equal in their width, and circular each,
Nor ample less nor larger they appear’d
Than in Saint John’s fair dome of me belov’d
Those fram’d to hold the pure baptismal streams,
One of the which I brake, some few years past,
To save a whelming infant; and be this
A seal to undeceive whoever doubts
The motive of my deed.  From out the mouth
Of every one, emerg’d a sinner’s feet
And of the legs high upward as the calf
The rest beneath was hid.  On either foot
The soles were burning, whence the flexile joints
Glanc’d with such violent motion, as had snapt
Asunder cords or twisted withs.  As flame,
Feeding on unctuous matter, glides along
The surface, scarcely touching where it moves;
So here, from heel to point, glided the flames.

“Master! say who is he, than all the rest
Glancing in fiercer agony, on whom
A ruddier flame doth prey?” I thus inquir’d.

“If thou be willing,” he replied, “that I
Carry thee down, where least the slope bank falls,
He of himself shall tell thee and his wrongs.”

I then:  “As pleases thee to me is best. 
Thou art my lord; and know’st that ne’er I quit
Thy will:  what silence hides that knowest thou.” 
Thereat on the fourth pier we came, we turn’d,
And on our left descended to the depth,
A narrow strait and perforated close. 
Nor from his side my leader set me down,
Till to his orifice he brought, whose limb
Quiv’ring express’d his pang.  “Whoe’er thou art,
Sad spirit! thus revers’d, and as a stake
Driv’n in the soil!” I in these words began,
“If thou be able, utter forth thy voice.”

There stood I like the friar, that doth shrive
A wretch for murder doom’d, who e’en when fix’d,
Calleth him back, whence death awhile delays.

He shouted:  “Ha! already standest there? 
Already standest there, O Boniface! 
By many a year the writing play’d me false. 
So early dost thou surfeit with the wealth,
For which thou fearedst not in guile to take
The lovely lady, and then mangle her?”

I felt as those who, piercing not the drift
Of answer made them, stand as if expos’d
In mockery, nor know what to reply,
When Virgil thus admonish’d:  “Tell him quick,
I am not he, not he, whom thou believ’st.”

And I, as was enjoin’d me, straight replied.

That heard, the spirit all did wrench his feet,
And sighing next in woeful accent spake: 
“What then of me requirest?  If to know
So much imports thee, who I am, that thou
Hast therefore down the bank descended, learn
That in the mighty mantle I was rob’d,
And of a she-bear was indeed the son,
So eager to advance my whelps, that there
My having in my purse above I stow’d,
And here myself.  Under my head are dragg’d