. . .
And one of them, who seemed to take offense,
perhaps at being named so squalidly,
struck with his fist at Adam’s rigid belly.
It sounded as if it had been a drum;
and Master Adam struck him in the face,
using his arm, which did not seem less hard,
saying to him: “Although I cannot move
my limbs because they are too heavy, I
still have an arm that’s free to serve that need.”
And he replied: “But when you went to burning,
your arm was not as quick as it was now;
though when you coined, it was as quick and more.”
To which the dropsied one: “Here you speak true;
but you were not so true a witness there,
when you were asked to tell the truth at Troy.”
“If I spoke false, you falsified the coin,”
said Sinon; “I am here for just one crime—
but you’ve committed more than any demon.”
“Do not forget the horse, you perjurer,”
replied the one who had the bloated belly,
“may you be plagued because the whole world knows it.”
The Greek: “And you be plagued by thirst that cracks
your tongue, and putrid water that has made
your belly such a hedge before your eyes.”
And then the coiner: “So, as usual,
your mouth, because of racking fever, gapes;
for if I thirst and if my humor bloats me,
you have both dryness and a head that aches;
few words would be sufficient invitation
to have you lick the mirror of Narcissus.”
I was intent on listening to them
when this was what my master said: “If you
insist on looking more, I’ll quarrel with you!”
And when I heard him speak so angrily,
I turned around to him with shame so great
that it still stirs within my memory.
Even as one who dreams that he is harmed
and, dreaming, wishes he were dreaming, thus
desiring that which is, as if it were not,
so I became within my speechlessness:
I wanted to excuse myself and did
excuse myself, although I knew it not.
Dante's Inferno, Canto XXX (Mendelbaum's translation)
