Then did mine Escort lead me toward the spot

Where through its wounds the bramble vainly cried,

" O Jacopo da Sant' Andrea ! what

Avails it thee behind my stem to hide ? ws

Must I thy guilty life's just doom partake? "
Hereat, my lord, pausing the trunk before,
Said, " Who art thou, from whom at many a break
Such bitter words come gushing with thy gore ? "

He thus : " Ye spirits ! who have come to see

The shameful wreck which thus my leaves hath shred,
Restore them to the foot of my sad tree.
. Know, in that city I was born and bred, iae



78 INFERNO.
Which for the Baptist her first patron lost, —
Mars ; who for that shall work her every ill !
And well for her, where Arno's wave is crossed,
Some relic of him is remaining still,

Or else the citizens, who reared again
The walls which Attila in ashes laid,
Would have expended all their toil in vain.
Of mine own roof-tree, I my gibbet made." "*



CANTO XIV. 79



CANTO THE FOURTEENTH.
My native land's dear memory had such force,

That the strewn leaves I gathered from the ground,
For him whom speaking now had rendered hoarse.
Then came we to the second circlet's bound,

Where it is parted from the third ; and here
Justice a horrid vengeance hath contrived :
First then, to manifest these wonders clear,
I say beside a sand-plain we arrived, 8

On whose waste bed no living stem there grows,
Being encompassed by the woful wood,
As round the wood the ditch of misery flows :
Here, on its very verge, we pausing stood.
