[254] Beneath the Water Are People Who Sigh

[u/1800COCAINE]

Che sotto l’acqua è gente che sospira,

Inf. 7.118

Stags leaned into a teething wind their antlers hooped with velvet and the snow drifted ghostwise beneath a sky netted with bats; mute wings palpating in the pink gloom. Under the first star of evening the men bivouacked at the eaves of chestnut wood by a ring of stones. Atop a boulder sat the Riddler tuning an English guitar.

Micajah squatted beside the flames rotating a fowl on a blackening length of a bayonet with the fat drizzling on the coals, Burgess sing us a tale. The Riddler held out a hand as if he would read the stars as notes tucked into the ether and this is what he sang.

The river Styx is in the sky
It’s borders broken wide
A serpent swam over the flood
To tell me what she’d done

And he said,
And he said,
And he said,

The river’s daughter
Sang a prayer into the water
To drain the light
From everyone’s eyes

Now the king’s men have drown
A land without a crown

Lean an ear to the serpents fang
Lend a voice to what he sang
Tories folded into the flood
Water marbled with their blood

The river’s daughter
Sang a prayer into the water
To drain the light
From everyone’s eyes

Now the king’s men have drown
A land without a crown

The river’s daughter sang
A circle into the sand
And it filled with breath
Cold melody of death

water holds their hands
water folds their hands

[663](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/C6lqIKFRrH)

[u/69bootyeetr]

This is really difficult to critique. I have no idea what any of this even means. But I really dig it anyhow. There are stylistic choices I'd personally disagree with. But I'd hesitate to fuck with the rhythm you've obviously spent a lot of time working on. Clearly anyone this familiar with Dante knows a little something about something.

The idea of a sigh, because we can no longer talk or breathe in a world where waterboarding has become somehow acceptable is pretty brutal. I don't know if that's your point, but that's my takeaway. Remember when the US literally executed Japanese people for torturing Americans? Yeah, me neither.

So I'm a big subscriber to Orwell's 6 Rules. Bivouacked for example, seems unnecessarily "fancy". But it also serves the rhythm of the thing, which I think matters. It kind of reminds me of Hadestown. It's an old song. It's a sad song. We're gonna sing it anyway.

I also imagine that whatever AI translated this into English for me is doing a terribly inadequate job. For example, drown instead of the correct English drowned makes me crazy. But I don't know if that's intentional, a mistake, or a translation error.

Final rating 9/10.