I look’d again; and as the eye makes out, By little and little, what the mist conceal’d In which, till clearing up, the sky was steep’d; So, looming through the gross and darksome air, As we drew nigh, those mighty bulks grew plain, And error quitted me, and terror join’d: For in like manner as all round its height Montereggione crowns itself with towers, So tower’d above the circuit of that pit, Though but half out of it, and half within, The horrible giants that fought Jove, and still Are threaten’d when he thunders. As we near’d The foremost, I discern’d his mighty face, His shoulders, breast, and more than half his trunk, With both the arms down hanging by the sides. His face appear’d to me, in length and breadth, Huge as St. Peter’s pinnacle at Rome, And of a like proportion all his bones. He open’d, as we went, his dreadful mouth, Fit for no sweeter psalmody; and shouted After us, in the words of some strange tongue, Ràfel ma-èe amech zabèe almee!-- ‘Dull wretch!’ my leader cried, ‘keep to thine horn, And so vent better whatsoever rage Or other passion stuff thee. Feel thy throat And find the chain upon thee, thou confusion! Lo! what a hoop is clench’d about thy gorge.’ Then turning to myself, he said, ‘His howl Is its own mockery. This is Nimrod, he Through whose ill thought it was that humankind Were tongue-confounded. Pass him, and say nought: For as he speaketh language known of none, So none can speak save jargon to himself.’ _Inferno_, Canto xxxi, ver. 34.