But Virgil bade me: 'Speak out loud and bold, "I am not he thou thinkest, no, not he!"' And I made answer as by him controlled. The spirit's feet then twisted violently, And, sighing in a voice of deep distress, He asked: 'What then requirest thou of me? If me to know thou hast such eagerness, That thou the cliff hast therefore ventured down, Know, the Great Mantle sometime was my dress. I of the Bear, in sooth, was worthy son: 70 As once, the Cubs to help, my purse with gain I stuffed, myself I in this purse have stown. Stretched out at length beneath my head remain All the simoniacs[543] that before me went, And flattened lie throughout the rocky vein. I in my turn shall also make descent, Soon as he comes who I believed thou wast, When I asked quickly what for him was meant. O'er me with blazing feet more time has past, While upside down I fill the topmost room, 80 Than he his crimsoned feet shall upward cast; For after him one viler still shall come, A Pastor from the West,[544] lawless of deed: To cover both of us his worthy doom. A modern Jason[545] he, of whom we read In Maccabees, whose King denied him nought: With the French King so shall this man succeed.' Perchance I ventured further than I ought, But I spake to him in this measure free: 'Ah, tell me now what money was there sought 90 Of Peter by our Lord, when either key He gave him in his guardianship to hold? Sure He demanded nought save: "Follow me!" Nor Peter, nor the others, asked for gold Or silver when upon Matthias fell The lot instead of him, the traitor-souled. Keep then thy place, for thou art punished well,[546] And clutch the pelf, dishonourably gained, Which against Charles[547] made thee so proudly swell. And, were it not that I am still restrained 100 By reverence[548] for those tremendous keys, Borne by thee while the glad world thee contained, I would use words even heavier than these; Seeing your avarice makes the world deplore, Crushing the good, filling the bad with ease. 'Twas you, O Pastors, the Evangelist bore In mind what time he saw her on the flood Of waters set, who played with kings the whore; Who with seven heads was born; and as she would By the ten horns to her was service done, 110 Long as her spouse[549] rejoiced in what was good. Now gold and silver are your god alone: What difference 'twixt the idolater and you, Save that ye pray a hundred for his one? Ah, Constantine,[550] how many evils grew-- Not from thy change of faith, but from the gift Wherewith thou didst the first rich Pope endue!' While I my voice continued to uplift To such a tune, by rage or conscience stirred Both of his soles he made to twist and shift. 120