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 reclin’d, beneath him sees
Fire-flies innumerous spangling o’er the vale,
Vineyard or tilth, where his day-labour lies: 
With flames so numberless throughout its space
Shone the eighth chasm, apparent, when the depth
Was to my view expos’d.  As he, whose wrongs
The bears aveng’d, at its departure saw
Elijah’s chariot, when the steeds erect
Rais’d their steep flight for heav’n; his eyes meanwhile,
Straining pursu’d 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 fall’n,
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
Swath’d in confining fire.”—­“Master, thy word,”
I answer’d, “hath assur’d 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, where lay
The Theban brothers?” He replied:  “Within
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, that open’d wide
A portal for that 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 utt’rance from within these sparks,” said I,
“O master! think my prayer a thousand fold
In repetition urg’d, that thou vouchsafe
To pause, till here the horned flame arrive. 
See, how toward it with desire I bend.”

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, might shun discourse with thee.”

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.”