'Under whose king[449] the world of yore was chaste. There stands a mountain, once the joyous hold Of woods and streams; as Ida 'twas renowned, Now 'tis deserted like a thing grown old. For a safe cradle 'twas by Rhea found. 100 To nurse her child[450] in; and his infant cry, Lest it betrayed him, she with clamours drowned. Within the mount an old man towereth high. Towards Damietta are his shoulders thrown; On Rome, as on his mirror, rests his eye. His head is fashioned of pure gold alone; Of purest silver are his arms and chest; 'Tis brass to where his legs divide; then down From that is all of iron of the best, Save the right foot, which is of baken clay; 110 And upon this foot doth he chiefly rest. Save what is gold, doth every part display A fissure dripping tears; these, gathering all Together, through the grotto pierce a way. From rock to rock into this deep they fall, Feed Acheron[451] and Styx and Phlegethon, Then downward travelling by this strait canal, Far as the place where further slope is none, Cocytus form; and what that pool may be I say not now. Thou'lt see it further on.' 120 'If this brook rises,' he was asked by me, 'Within our world, how comes it that no trace We saw of it till on this boundary?' And he replied: 'Thou knowest that the place Is round, and far as thou hast moved thy feet, Still to the left hand[452] sinking to the base, Nath'less thy circuit is not yet complete. Therefore if something new we chance to spy, Amazement needs not on thy face have seat.' I then: 'But, Master, where doth Lethe lie, 130 And Phlegethon? Of that thou sayest nought; Of this thou say'st, those tears its flood supply.' 'It likes me well to be by thee besought; But by the boiling red wave,' I was told, 'To half thy question was an answer brought. Lethe,[453] not in this pit, shalt thou behold. Thither to wash themselves the spirits go, When penitence has made them spotless souled.' Then said he: 'From the wood 'tis fitting now That we depart; behind me press thou nigh. 140 Keep we the margins, for they do not glow, And over them, ere fallen, the fire-flakes die.' FOOTNOTES: [433] _Dear constraint_: The mention of Florence has awakened Dante to pity, and he willingly complies with the request of the unnamed suicide (_Inf._ xiii. 142). As a rule, the only service he consents to yield the souls with whom he converses in Inferno is to restore their memory upon earth; a favour he does not feign to be asked for in this case, out of consideration, it may be, for the family of the sinner. [434] _Cato_: Cato of Utica, who, after the defeat of Pompey at Pharsalia, led his broken army across the Libyan desert to join King Juba.