Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/152

132 And I: "My Master, see to it, if thou canst,

That thou mayst know who is the luckless wight,

Thus come into his adversaries' hands."

Near to the side of him my Leader drew,

Asked of him whence he was; and he replied:

"I in the kingdom of Navarre was born;

My mother placed me servant to a lord,

For she had borne me to a ribald knave,

Destroyer of himself and of his things.

Then I domestic was of good King Thibault;

I set me there to practise barratry,

For which I pay the reckoning in this heat."

And Ciriatto, from whose mouth projected,

On either side, a tusk, as in a boar,

Caused him to feel how one of them could rip.

Among malicious cats the mouse had come;

But Barbariccia clasped him in his arms,

And said: "Stand ye aside, while I enfork him."

And to my Master he turned round his head;

"Ask him again," he said, "if more thou wish

To know from him, before some one destroy him."

The Guide: "Now tell then of the other culprits;

Knowest thou any one who is a Latian,

Under the pitch?" And he: "I separated