Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/98

Then blew the trunk amain, and afterward
⁠The wind was into such a voice converted:
⁠"With brevity shall be replied to you.
When the exasperated soul abandons
⁠The body whence it rent itself away, 95
⁠Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.
It falls into the forest, and no part
⁠Is chosen for it; but where Fortune hurls it,
⁠There like a grain of spelt it germinates.
It springs a sapling, and a forest tree; 100
⁠The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves,
⁠Do pain create, and for the pain an outlet.
Like others for our spoils shall we return;
⁠But not that any one may them revest,
⁠For 't is not just to have what one casts off. 105
Here we shall drag them, and along the dismal
⁠Forest our bodies shall suspended be,
⁠Each to the thorn of his molested shade."
We were attentive still unto the trunk,
⁠Thinking that more it yet might wish to tell us, 110
⁠When by a tumult we were overtaken,
In the same way as he is who perceives
⁠The boar and chase approaching to his stand,
⁠Who hears the crashing of the beasts and branches;