Rejoice, O Florence, in thy widening fame! Thy wings thou beatest over land and sea, And even through Inferno spreads thy name. Burghers of thine, five such were found by me Among the thieves; whence I ashamed[668] grew, Nor shall great glory thence redound to thee. But if 'tis toward the morning[669] dreams are true, Thou shalt experience ere long time be gone The doom even Prato[670] prays for as thy due. And came it now, it would not come too soon. 10 Would it were come as come it must with time: 'Twill crush me more the older I am grown. Departing thence, my Guide began to climb The jutting rocks by which we made descent Some while ago,[671] and pulled me after him. And as upon our lonely way we went 'Mong splinters[672] of the cliff, the feet in vain, Without the hand to help, had labour spent. I sorrowed, and am sorrow-smit again, Recalling what before mine eyes there lay, 20 And, more than I am wont, my genius rein From running save where virtue leads the way; So that if happy star[673] or holier might Have gifted me I never mourn it may. At time of year when he who gives earth light His face shows to us longest visible, When gnats replace the fly at fall of night, Not by the peasant resting on the hill Are seen more fire-flies in the vale below, Where he perchance doth field and vineyard[674] till, 30 Than flamelets I beheld resplendent glow Throughout the whole Eighth Bolgia, when at last I stood whence I the bottom plain could know. And as he whom the bears avenged, when passed From the earth Elijah, saw the chariot rise With horses heavenward reared and mounting fast, And no long time had traced it with his eyes Till but a flash of light it all became, Which like a rack of cloud swept to the skies: Deep in the valley's gorge, in mode the same, 40 These flitted; what it held by none was shown, And yet a sinner[675] lurked in every flame. To see them well I from the bridge peered down, And if a jutting crag I had not caught I must have fallen, though neither thrust nor thrown. My Leader me beholding lost in thought: 'In all the fires are spirits,' said to me; 'His flame round each is for a garment wrought.' 'O Master!' I replied, 'by hearing thee I grow assured, but yet I knew before 50 That thus indeed it was, and longed to be Told who is in the flame which there doth soar, Cloven, as if ascending from the pyre Where with Eteocles[676] there burned of yore His brother.' He: 'Ulysses in that fire And Diomedes[677] burn; in punishment Thus held together, as they held in ire. And, wrapped within their flame, they now repent The ambush of the horse, which oped the door Through which the Romans' noble seed[678] forth went. 60