Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/213

Rh With one half of their bodies turreted

The horrible giants, whom Jove menaces

E'en now from out the heavens when he thunders.

And I of one already saw the face,

Shoulders, and breast, and great part of the belly,

And down along his sides both of the arms.

Certainly Nature, when she left the making

Of animals like these, did well indeed,

By taking such executors from Mars;

And if of elephants and whales she doth not

Repent her, whosoever looketh subtly

More just and more discreet will hold her for it;

For where the argument of intellect

Is added unto evil will and power,

No rampart can the people make against it.

His face appeared to me as long and large

As is at Rome the pine-cone of Saint Peter's,

And in proportion were the other bones;

So that the margin, which an apron was

Down from the middle, showed so much of him

Above it, that to reach up to his hair

Three Frieslanders in vain had vaunted them;

For I beheld thirty great palms of him

Down from the place where man his mantle buckles.