(5) All assembled, they assembled in great numbers and deliberated among themselves. And they said, asking each other: "What shall we do to overcome the Quiché of Cavec by whose hands our sons and vassals are being killed? it is not known how our people are being destroyed. If we must perish, because of these abductions, so let it be; and if the power of Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz is so great then let our god be this Tohil, and God grant that you take him captive. It is not possible that they shall overcome us. Are there not, perchance, enough men among us? And the Cavec are not many," they said, when all were assembled.

(6) Upon this side he fell down out of heaven; And all the land, that whilom here emerged, For fear of him made of the sea a veil, And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure To flee from him, what on this side appears Left the place vacant here, and back recoiled." A place there is below, from Beelzebub As far receding as the tomb extends, Which not by sight is known, but by the sound Of a small rivulet, that there descendeth Through chasm within the stone, which it has gnawed With course that winds about and slightly falls. The Guide and I into that hidden road Now entered, to return to the bright world; And without care of having any rest We mounted up, he first and I the second, Till I beheld through a round aperture Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear; Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.

(6) I think in sooth that it my Leader pleased, With such contented lip he listened ever Unto the sound of the true words expressed. Therefore with both his arms he took me up, And when he had me all upon his breast, Remounted by the way where he descended. Nor did he tire to have me clasped to him; But bore me to the summit of the arch Which from the fourth dike to the fifth is passage. There tenderly he laid his burden down, Tenderly on the crag uneven and steep, That would have been hard passage for the goats: Thence was unveiled to me another valley.

(2) They said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from the door? and they found the stone rolled away.

(5) He led us on to where the rock was cleft; There smote upon my forehead with his wings, Then a safe passage promised unto me. As on the right hand, to ascend the mount Where seated is the church that lordeth it O'er the well-guided, above Rubaconte, The bold abruptness of the ascent is broken By stairways that were made there in the age When still were safe the ledger and the stave, E'en thus attempered is the bank which falls Sheer downward from the second circle there; But on this, side and that the high rock graze. As we were turning thitherward our persons, "Beati pauperes spiritu," voices Sang in such wise that speech could tell it not. Ah me! how different are these entrances From the Infernal! for with anthems here One enters, and below with wild laments. We now were hunting up the sacred stairs, And it appeared to me by far more easy Than on the plain it had appeared before. Whence I: "My Master, say, what heavy thing Has been uplifted from me, so that hardly Aught of fatigue is felt by me in walking?"

(4) At the next round, and let us descend the wall; For as from hence I hear and understand not, So I look down and nothing I distinguish." "Other response," he said, "I make thee not, Except the doing; for the modest asking Ought to be followed by the deed in silence." We from the bridge descended at its head, Where it connects itself with the eighth bank, And then was manifest to me the Bolgia; And I beheld therein a terrible throng Of serpents, and of such a monstrous kind, That the remembrance still congeals my blood Let Libya boast no longer with her sand; For if Chelydri, Jaculi, and Phareae She breeds, with Cenchri and with Amphisbaena, Neither so many plagues nor so malignant E'er showed she with all Ethiopia, Nor with whatever on the Red Sea is! Among this cruel and most dismal throng People were running naked and affrighted. Without the hope of hole or heliotrope. They had their hands with serpents bound behind them; These riveted upon their reins the tail And head, and were in front of them entwined.

(5) With him go those who in such wise deceive; And this sufficient be of the first valley To know, and those that in its jaws it holds." We were already where the narrow path Crosses athwart the second dike, and forms Of that a buttress for another arch. Thence we heard people, who are making moan In the next Bolgia, snorting with their muzzles, And with their palms beating upon themselves The margins were incrusted with a mould By exhalation from below, that sticks there, And with the eyes and nostrils wages war. The bottom is so deep, no place suffices To give us sight of it, without ascending The arch's back, where most the crag impends. Thither we came, and thence down in the moat I saw a people smothered in a filth That out of human privies seemed to flow; And whilst below there with mine eye I search, I saw one with his head so foul with ordure, It was not clear if he were clerk or layman. He screamed to me: "Wherefore art thou so eager To look at me more than the other foul ones?" And I to him: "Because, if I remember,

(16) And they dug out a pit in the earth, and iron was obtained by them and beaten out with a stone, and without a forge they beat out a cutting edge from it; and they cut wood with it, and prepared a wooden shelter from the sun (pês-khûr).

(4) Before Colché, as a symbol of a town destroyed by him, there is now a pile of stones, which look almost as if they had been cut With the edge of an ax. it is there on the coast, called Petatayub, and it may be clearly seen today by people who pass, as proof of the valor of Quicab. They could neither kill him nor overcome him, for, in truth, he was a brave man, and all the people rendered tribute unto him.

(5) It was not any palace corridor There where we were, but dungeon natural, With floor uneven and unease of light. "Ere from the abyss I tear myself away, My Master," said I when I had arisen, "To draw me from an error speak a little; Where is the ice? and how is this one fixed Thus upside down? and how in such short time From eve to morn has the sun made his transit?" And he to me: "Thou still imaginest Thou art beyond the centre, where I grasped The hair of the fell worm, who mines the world. That side thou wast, so long as I descended; When round I turned me, thou didst pass the point To which things heavy draw from every side, And now beneath the hemisphere art come Opposite that which overhangs the vast Dry-land, and 'neath whose cope was put to death The Man who without sin was born and lived. Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphere Which makes the other face of the Judecca. Here it is morn when it is evening there; And he who with his hair a stairway made us Still fixed remaineth as he was before.

(8) Meanwhile the hearts of the priests and the sacrificers on the summit of the mountain were calm. And Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, Mahucutah, and Iqui-Balam having talked together, they built a wall at the edge of the town and enclosed it with boards and thorns. Then they made figures in the form of men, and put them in rows on the wall, armed them with shields and arrows and adorned them, putting metal crowns on their heads. These they put on the simple wooden figures, they adorned them with the metal which they had taken from the tribes on the road and with them they decorated the figures. They made a moat around the town, and then they asked advice of Tohil: "Shall they kill us? Shall they overcome us?" their hearts said to Tohil.

(6) His eyes cast down, his forehead shorn had he Of all its boldness, and he said, with sighs, "Who has denied to me the dolesome houses?" And unto me: "Thou, because I am angry, Fear not, for I will conquer in the trial, Whatever for defence within be planned. This arrogance of theirs is nothing new; For once they used it at less secret gate, Which finds itself without a fastening still. O'er it didst thou behold the dead inscription; And now this side of it descends the steep, Passing across the circles without escort, One by whose means the city shall be opened."

(2) Taking each other by the hand, Gilgamesh and Enkidu walked to the Egalmah ("Great Palace"), to Ninsun, the Great Queen. Gilgamesh arose and went to her. "Ninsun, (even though) I am extraordinarily strong (!)... I must now travel a long way to where Humbaba is, I must face fighting such as I have not known, and I must travel on a road that I do not know! Until the time that I go and return, until I reach the Cedar Forest, until I kill Humbaba the Terrible, and eradicate from the land something baneful that Shamash hates, intercede with Shamash on my behalf' (!) If I kill Humbaba and cut his Cedar let there be rejoicing all over the land, and I will erect a monument of the victory (?) before you! The... words of Gilgamesh, her son, grieving, Queen Ninsun heard over and over.

(4) In this way they took their leave and immediately they disappeared there on the summit of the mountain Hacavitz. They [the four lords] were not buried by their wives nor by their children, because they were not seen when they disappeared. Only their leaving was seen dearly, and therefore the bundle was very dear to them. it was the reminder of their fathers and at once they burned incense before this reminder of their fathers. And then the lords, who succeeded Balam-Quitzé, begot new generations of men, and this was the beginning of the grandfathers and fathers of those of Cavec; but their sons, those called Qocaib and Qocavib, did not disappear. In this way the four died, our first grandfathers and fathers; in this way they disappeared, leaving their children on the mountain Hacavitz, there where they have remained. And the people being subdued already, and their grandeur ended, the tribes no longer had power, and all lived to serve daily.

(38) Eliezer xxxix. (towards end). Judah went forth in front, and Naphtali and Gad" with him and fifty servants with him on the south side of the tower, and they slew all they found before them, and not one individual of them escaped.

(3) "How is this?" was the answer; "should one wish To mount by night would he prevented be By others? or mayhap would not have power?" And on the ground the good Sordello drew His finger, saying, "See, this line alone Thou couldst not pass after the sun is gone; Not that aught else would hindrance give, however, To going up, save the nocturnal darkness; This with the want of power the will perplexes. We might indeed therewith return below, And, wandering, walk the hill-side round about, While the horizon holds the day imprisoned." Thereon my Lord, as if in wonder, said: "Do thou conduct us thither, where thou sayest That we can take delight in tarrying." Little had we withdrawn us from that place, When I perceived the mount was hollowed out In fashion as the valleys here are hollowed. "Thitherward," said that shade, "will we repair, Where of itself the hill-side makes a lap, And there for the new day will we await." 'Twixt hill and plain there was a winding path Which led us to the margin of that dell, Where dies the border more than half away.

(6) Then was I still more fearful of the abyss; Because I fires beheld, and heard laments, Whereat I, trembling, all the closer cling. I saw then, for before I had not seen it, The turning and descending, by great horrors That were approaching upon divers sides. As falcon who has long been on the wing, Who, without seeing either lure or bird, Maketh the falconer say, "Ah me, thou stoopest," Descendeth weary, whence he started swiftly, Thorough a hundred circles, and alights Far from his master, sullen and disdainful; Even thus did Geryon place us on the bottom, Close to the bases of the rough-hewn rock, And being disencumbered of our persons, He sped away as arrow from the string.

(6) The tavern-keeper spoke to Gilgamesh, saying: "There has never been, Gilgamesh, any passage whatever, there has never been anyone since days of yore who crossed the sea. The (only) one who crosses the sea is valiant Shamash, except for him who can cross! The crossing is difficult, its ways are treacherous-- and in between are the Waters of Death that bar its approaches! And even if, Gilgamesh, you should cross the sea, when you reach the Waters of Death what would you do! Gilgamesh, over there is Urshanabi, the ferryman of Utanapishtim. 'The stone things' L are with him, he is in the woods picking mint(!). Go on, let him see your face. If possible, cross with him; if not, you should turn back. When Gilgamesh heard this he raised the axe in his hand, drew the dagger from his belt, and slipped stealthily away after them.

(6) All of their coverings uplifted were, And from them issued forth such dire laments, Sooth seemed they of the wretched and tormented. And I: "My Master, what are all those people Who, having sepulture within those tombs, Make themselves audible by doleful sighs?" And he to me: "Here are the Heresiarchs, With their disciples of all sects, and much More than thou thinkest laden are the tombs. Here like together with its like is buried; And more and less the monuments are heated." And when he to the right had turned, we passed Between the torments and high parapets.

(6) All remained watching along the road, but they heard nothing and they finally fell asleep. Then they [Balam-Quitzé, Balam-Acab, and Mahucutah] began to pull out their eyelashes and their beards; they took off the metal ornaments from their throats--their crowns and necklaces. And they took the metal from the handles of their spears. They did this to punish them and humiliate them, and give them an example of the power of the Quiché people.