Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/209

Rh "If I spake false, thou falsifiedst the coin,"

Said Sinon; "and for one fault I am here,

And thou for more than any other demon."

"Remember, perjurer, about the horse,"

He made reply who had the swollen belly,

"And rueful be it thee the whole world knows it."

"Rueful to thee the thirst be wherewith cracks

Thy tongue," the Greek said, "and the putrid water

That hedges so thy paunch before thine eyes."

Then the false-coiner: "So is gaping wide

Thy mouth for speaking evil, as 't is wont;

Because if I have thirst, and humor stuff me,

Thou hast the burning and the head that aches,

And to lick up the mirror of Narcissus

Thou wouldst not want words many to invite thee."

In listening to them was I wholly fixed,

When said the Master to me: "Now just look,

For little wants it that I quarrel with thee."

When him I heard in anger speak to me,

I turned me round towards him with such shame

That still it eddies through my memory.

And as he is who dreams of his own harm,

Who dreaming wishes it may be a dream,

So that he craves what is, as if it were not;