Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/140

120 And afterwards was forced to strike once more

The two entangled serpents with his rod,

Ere he could have again his manly plumes.

That Aruns is, who backs the other's belly,

Who in the hills of Luni, there where grubs

The Carrarese who houses underneath,

Among the marbles white a cavern had

For his abode; whence to behold the stars

And sea, the view was not cut off from him.

And she there, who is covering up her breasts,

Which thou beholdest not, with loosened tresses,

And on that side has all the hairy skin,

Was Manto, who made quest through many lands,

Afterwards tarried there where I was born;

Whereof I would thou list to me a little.

After her father had from life departed,

And the city of Bacchus had become enslaved,

She a long season wandered through the world.

Above in beauteous Italy lies a lake

At the Alp's foot that shuts in Germany

Over Tyrol, and has the name Benaco.

By a thousand springs, I think, and more, is bathed,

'Twixt Garda and Val Camonica, Pennino,

With water that grows stagnant in that lake.