Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/206

186 That he might gain the lady of the herd,

To counterfeit in himself Buoso Donati,

Making a will and giving it due form."

And after the two maniacs had passed

On whom I held mine eye, I turned it back

To look upon the other evil-born.

I saw one made in fashion of a lute,

If he had only had the groin cut off

Just at the point at which a man is forked.

The heavy dropsy, that so disproportions

The limbs with humors, which it ill concocts,

That the face corresponds not to the belly,

Compelled him so to hold his lips apart

As does the hectic, who because of thirst

One tow'rds the chin, the other upward turns.

"O ye, who without any torment are,

And why I know not, in the world of woe,"

He said to us, "behold, and be attentive

Unto the misery of Master Adam;

I had while living much of what I wished,

And now, alas! a drop of water crave.

The rivulets, that from the verdant hills

Of Cassentin descend down into Arno,

Making their channels to be cold and moist,