<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>The Divine Comedy</h1>
<h2 class="no-break">of Dante Alighieri</h2>
<h3>Translated by<br/>HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW</h3>
<hr />
<h2><SPAN name="INFERNO"></SPAN>INFERNO</h2>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoI.I"></SPAN>Inferno: Canto I</h2>
<p>
Midway upon the journey of our life<br/>
I found myself within a forest dark,<br/>
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.</p>
<p>
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say<br/>
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,<br/>
Which in the very thought renews the fear.</p>
<p>
So bitter is it, death is little more;<br/>
But of the good to treat, which there I found,<br/>
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.</p>
<p>
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,<br/>
So full was I of slumber at the moment<br/>
In which I had abandoned the true way.</p>
<p>
But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,<br/>
At that point where the valley terminated,<br/>
Which had with consternation pierced my heart,</p>
<p>
Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,<br/>
Vested already with that planet’s rays<br/>
Which leadeth others right by every road.</p>
<p>
Then was the fear a little quieted<br/>
That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout<br/>
The night, which I had passed so piteously.</p>
<p>
And even as he, who, with distressful breath,<br/>
Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,<br/>
Turns to the water perilous and gazes;</p>
<p>
So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,<br/>
Turn itself back to re-behold the pass<br/>
Which never yet a living person left.</p>
<p>
After my weary body I had rested,<br/>
The way resumed I on the desert slope,<br/>
So that the firm foot ever was the lower.</p>
<p>
And lo! almost where the ascent began,<br/>
A panther light and swift exceedingly,<br/>
Which with a spotted skin was covered o’er!</p>
<p>
And never moved she from before my face,<br/>
Nay, rather did impede so much my way,<br/>
That many times I to return had turned.</p>
<p>
The time was the beginning of the morning,<br/>
And up the sun was mounting with those stars<br/>
That with him were, what time the Love Divine</p>
<p>
At first in motion set those beauteous things;<br/>
So were to me occasion of good hope,<br/>
The variegated skin of that wild beast,</p>
<p>
The hour of time, and the delicious season;<br/>
But not so much, that did not give me fear<br/>
A lion’s aspect which appeared to me.</p>
<p>
He seemed as if against me he were coming<br/>
With head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger,<br/>
So that it seemed the air was afraid of him;</p>
<p>
And a she-wolf, that with all hungerings<br/>
Seemed to be laden in her meagreness,<br/>
And many folk has caused to live forlorn!</p>
<p>
She brought upon me so much heaviness,<br/>
With the affright that from her aspect came,<br/>
That I the hope relinquished of the height.</p>
<p>
And as he is who willingly acquires,<br/>
And the time comes that causes him to lose,<br/>
Who weeps in all his thoughts and is despondent,</p>
<p>
E’en such made me that beast withouten peace,<br/>
Which, coming on against me by degrees<br/>
Thrust me back thither where the sun is silent.</p>
<p>
While I was rushing downward to the lowland,<br/>
Before mine eyes did one present himself,<br/>
Who seemed from long-continued silence hoarse.</p>
<p>
When I beheld him in the desert vast,<br/>
“Have pity on me,” unto him I cried,<br/>
“Whiche’er thou art, or shade or real man!”</p>
<p>
He answered me: “Not man; man once I was,<br/>
And both my parents were of Lombardy,<br/>
And Mantuans by country both of them.</p>
<p>
‘Sub Julio’ was I born, though it was late,<br/>
And lived at Rome under the good Augustus,<br/>
During the time of false and lying gods.</p>
<p>
A poet was I, and I sang that just<br/>
Son of Anchises, who came forth from Troy,<br/>
After that Ilion the superb was burned.</p>
<p>
But thou, why goest thou back to such annoyance?<br/>
Why climb’st thou not the Mount Delectable,<br/>
Which is the source and cause of every joy?”</p>
<p>
“Now, art thou that Virgilius and that fountain<br/>
Which spreads abroad so wide a river of speech?”<br/>
I made response to him with bashful forehead.</p>
<p>
“O, of the other poets honour and light,<br/>
Avail me the long study and great love<br/>
That have impelled me to explore thy volume!</p>
<p>
Thou art my master, and my author thou,<br/>
Thou art alone the one from whom I took<br/>
The beautiful style that has done honour to me.</p>
<p>
Behold the beast, for which I have turned back;<br/>
Do thou protect me from her, famous Sage,<br/>
For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble.”</p>
<p>
“Thee it behoves to take another road,”<br/>
Responded he, when he beheld me weeping,<br/>
“If from this savage place thou wouldst escape;</p>
<p>
Because this beast, at which thou criest out,<br/>
Suffers not any one to pass her way,<br/>
But so doth harass him, that she destroys him;</p>
<p>
And has a nature so malign and ruthless,<br/>
That never doth she glut her greedy will,<br/>
And after food is hungrier than before.</p>
<p>
Many the animals with whom she weds,<br/>
And more they shall be still, until the Greyhound<br/>
Comes, who shall make her perish in her pain.</p>
<p>
He shall not feed on either earth or pelf,<br/>
But upon wisdom, and on love and virtue;<br/>
’Twixt Feltro and Feltro shall his nation be;</p>
<p>
Of that low Italy shall he be the saviour,<br/>
On whose account the maid Camilla died,<br/>
Euryalus, Turnus, Nisus, of their wounds;</p>
<p>
Through every city shall he hunt her down,<br/>
Until he shall have driven her back to Hell,<br/>
There from whence envy first did let her loose.</p>
<p>
Therefore I think and judge it for thy best<br/>
Thou follow me, and I will be thy guide,<br/>
And lead thee hence through the eternal place,</p>
<p>
Where thou shalt hear the desperate lamentations,<br/>
Shalt see the ancient spirits disconsolate,<br/>
Who cry out each one for the second death;</p>
<p>
And thou shalt see those who contented are<br/>
Within the fire, because they hope to come,<br/>
Whene’er it may be, to the blessed people;</p>
<p>
To whom, then, if thou wishest to ascend,<br/>
A soul shall be for that than I more worthy;<br/>
With her at my departure I will leave thee;</p>
<p>
Because that Emperor, who reigns above,<br/>
In that I was rebellious to his law,<br/>
Wills that through me none come into his city.</p>
<p>
He governs everywhere, and there he reigns;<br/>
There is his city and his lofty throne;<br/>
O happy he whom thereto he elects!”</p>
<p>
And I to him: “Poet, I thee entreat,<br/>
By that same God whom thou didst never know,<br/>
So that I may escape this woe and worse,</p>
<p>
Thou wouldst conduct me there where thou hast said,<br/>
That I may see the portal of Saint Peter,<br/>
And those thou makest so disconsolate.”</p>
<p>
Then he moved on, and I behind him followed.</p>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoI.II"></SPAN>Inferno: Canto II</h2>
<p>
Day was departing, and the embrowned air<br/>
Released the animals that are on earth<br/>
From their fatigues; and I the only one</p>
<p>
Made myself ready to sustain the war,<br/>
Both of the way and likewise of the woe,<br/>
Which memory that errs not shall retrace.</p>
<p>
O Muses, O high genius, now assist me!<br/>
O memory, that didst write down what I saw,<br/>
Here thy nobility shall be manifest!</p>
<p>
And I began: “Poet, who guidest me,<br/>
Regard my manhood, if it be sufficient,<br/>
Ere to the arduous pass thou dost confide me.</p>
<p>
Thou sayest, that of Silvius the parent,<br/>
While yet corruptible, unto the world<br/>
Immortal went, and was there bodily.</p>
<p>
But if the adversary of all evil<br/>
Was courteous, thinking of the high effect<br/>
That issue would from him, and who, and what,</p>
<p>
To men of intellect unmeet it seems not;<br/>
For he was of great Rome, and of her empire<br/>
In the empyreal heaven as father chosen;</p>
<p>
The which and what, wishing to speak the truth,<br/>
Were stablished as the holy place, wherein<br/>
Sits the successor of the greatest Peter.</p>
<p>
Upon this journey, whence thou givest him vaunt,<br/>
Things did he hear, which the occasion were<br/>
Both of his victory and the papal mantle.</p>
<p>
Thither went afterwards the Chosen Vessel,<br/>
To bring back comfort thence unto that Faith,<br/>
Which of salvation’s way is the beginning.</p>
<p>
But I, why thither come, or who concedes it?<br/>
I not Aeneas am, I am not Paul,<br/>
Nor I, nor others, think me worthy of it.</p>
<p>
Therefore, if I resign myself to come,<br/>
I fear the coming may be ill-advised;<br/>
Thou’rt wise, and knowest better than I speak.”</p>
<p>
And as he is, who unwills what he willed,<br/>
And by new thoughts doth his intention change,<br/>
So that from his design he quite withdraws,</p>
<p>
Such I became, upon that dark hillside,<br/>
Because, in thinking, I consumed the emprise,<br/>
Which was so very prompt in the beginning.</p>
<p>
“If I have well thy language understood,”<br/>
Replied that shade of the Magnanimous,<br/>
“Thy soul attainted is with cowardice,</p>
<p>
Which many times a man encumbers so,<br/>
It turns him back from honoured enterprise,<br/>
As false sight doth a beast, when he is shy.</p>
<p>
That thou mayst free thee from this apprehension,<br/>
I’ll tell thee why I came, and what I heard<br/>
At the first moment when I grieved for thee.</p>
<p>
Among those was I who are in suspense,<br/>
And a fair, saintly Lady called to me<br/>
In such wise, I besought her to command me.</p>
<p>
Her eyes where shining brighter than the Star;<br/>
And she began to say, gentle and low,<br/>
With voice angelical, in her own language:</p>
<p>
‘O spirit courteous of Mantua,<br/>
Of whom the fame still in the world endures,<br/>
And shall endure, long-lasting as the world;</p>
<p>
A friend of mine, and not the friend of fortune,<br/>
Upon the desert slope is so impeded<br/>
Upon his way, that he has turned through terror,</p>
<p>
And may, I fear, already be so lost,<br/>
That I too late have risen to his succour,<br/>
From that which I have heard of him in Heaven.</p>
<p>
Bestir thee now, and with thy speech ornate,<br/>
And with what needful is for his release,<br/>
Assist him so, that I may be consoled.</p>
<p>
Beatrice am I, who do bid thee go;<br/>
I come from there, where I would fain return;<br/>
Love moved me, which compelleth me to speak.</p>
<p>
When I shall be in presence of my Lord,<br/>
Full often will I praise thee unto him.’<br/>
Then paused she, and thereafter I began:</p>
<p>
‘O Lady of virtue, thou alone through whom<br/>
The human race exceedeth all contained<br/>
Within the heaven that has the lesser circles,</p>
<p>
So grateful unto me is thy commandment,<br/>
To obey, if ’twere already done, were late;<br/>
No farther need’st thou ope to me thy wish.</p>
<p>
But the cause tell me why thou dost not shun<br/>
The here descending down into this centre,<br/>
From the vast place thou burnest to return to.’</p>
<p>
‘Since thou wouldst fain so inwardly discern,<br/>
Briefly will I relate,’ she answered me,<br/>
‘Why I am not afraid to enter here.</p>
<p>
Of those things only should one be afraid<br/>
Which have the power of doing others harm;<br/>
Of the rest, no; because they are not fearful.</p>
<p>
God in his mercy such created me<br/>
That misery of yours attains me not,<br/>
Nor any flame assails me of this burning.</p>
<p>
A gentle Lady is in Heaven, who grieves<br/>
At this impediment, to which I send thee,<br/>
So that stern judgment there above is broken.</p>
<p>
In her entreaty she besought Lucia,<br/>
And said, “Thy faithful one now stands in need<br/>
Of thee, and unto thee I recommend him.”</p>
<p>
Lucia, foe of all that cruel is,<br/>
Hastened away, and came unto the place<br/>
Where I was sitting with the ancient Rachel.</p>
<p>
“Beatrice” said she, “the true praise of God,<br/>
Why succourest thou not him, who loved thee so,<br/>
For thee he issued from the vulgar herd?</p>
<p>
Dost thou not hear the pity of his plaint?<br/>
Dost thou not see the death that combats him<br/>
Beside that flood, where ocean has no vaunt?”</p>
<p>
Never were persons in the world so swift<br/>
To work their weal and to escape their woe,<br/>
As I, after such words as these were uttered,</p>
<p>
Came hither downward from my blessed seat,<br/>
Confiding in thy dignified discourse,<br/>
Which honours thee, and those who’ve listened to it.’</p>
<p>
After she thus had spoken unto me,<br/>
Weeping, her shining eyes she turned away;<br/>
Whereby she made me swifter in my coming;</p>
<p>
And unto thee I came, as she desired;<br/>
I have delivered thee from that wild beast,<br/>
Which barred the beautiful mountain’s short ascent.</p>
<p>
What is it, then? Why, why dost thou delay?<br/>
Why is such baseness bedded in thy heart?<br/>
Daring and hardihood why hast thou not,</p>
<p>
Seeing that three such Ladies benedight<br/>
Are caring for thee in the court of Heaven,<br/>
And so much good my speech doth promise thee?”</p>
<p>
Even as the flowerets, by nocturnal chill,<br/>
Bowed down and closed, when the sun whitens them,<br/>
Uplift themselves all open on their stems;</p>
<p>
Such I became with my exhausted strength,<br/>
And such good courage to my heart there coursed,<br/>
That I began, like an intrepid person:</p>
<p>
“O she compassionate, who succoured me,<br/>
And courteous thou, who hast obeyed so soon<br/>
The words of truth which she addressed to thee!</p>
<p>
Thou hast my heart so with desire disposed<br/>
To the adventure, with these words of thine,<br/>
That to my first intent I have returned.</p>
<p>
Now go, for one sole will is in us both,<br/>
Thou Leader, and thou Lord, and Master thou.”<br/>
Thus said I to him; and when he had moved,</p>
<p>
I entered on the deep and savage way.</p>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoI.III"></SPAN>Inferno: Canto III</h2>
<p>
“Through me the way is to the city dolent;<br/>
Through me the way is to eternal dole;<br/>
Through me the way among the people lost.</p>
<p>
Justice incited my sublime Creator;<br/>
Created me divine Omnipotence,<br/>
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.</p>
<p>
Before me there were no created things,<br/>
Only eterne, and I eternal last.<br/>
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”</p>
<p>
These words in sombre colour I beheld<br/>
Written upon the summit of a gate;<br/>
Whence I: “Their sense is, Master, hard to me!”</p>
<p>
And he to me, as one experienced:<br/>
“Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,<br/>
All cowardice must needs be here extinct.</p>
<p>
We to the place have come, where I have told thee<br/>
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous<br/>
Who have foregone the good of intellect.”</p>
<p>
And after he had laid his hand on mine<br/>
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,<br/>
He led me in among the secret things.</p>
<p>
There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud<br/>
Resounded through the air without a star,<br/>
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.</p>
<p>
Languages diverse, horrible dialects,<br/>
Accents of anger, words of agony,<br/>
And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,</p>
<p>
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on<br/>
For ever in that air for ever black,<br/>
Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.</p>
<p>
And I, who had my head with horror bound,<br/>
Said: “Master, what is this which now I hear?<br/>
What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?”</p>
<p>
And he to me: “This miserable mode<br/>
Maintain the melancholy souls of those<br/>
Who lived withouten infamy or praise.</p>
<p>
Commingled are they with that caitiff choir<br/>
Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,<br/>
Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.</p>
<p>
The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;<br/>
Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,<br/>
For glory none the damned would have from them.”</p>
<p>
And I: “O Master, what so grievous is<br/>
To these, that maketh them lament so sore?”<br/>
He answered: “I will tell thee very briefly.</p>
<p>
These have no longer any hope of death;<br/>
And this blind life of theirs is so debased,<br/>
They envious are of every other fate.</p>
<p>
No fame of them the world permits to be;<br/>
Misericord and Justice both disdain them.<br/>
Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass.”</p>
<p>
And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,<br/>
Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,<br/>
That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;</p>
<p>
And after it there came so long a train<br/>
Of people, that I ne’er would have believed<br/>
That ever Death so many had undone.</p>
<p>
When some among them I had recognised,<br/>
I looked, and I beheld the shade of him<br/>
Who made through cowardice the great refusal.</p>
<p>
Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,<br/>
That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches<br/>
Hateful to God and to his enemies.</p>
<p>
These miscreants, who never were alive,<br/>
Were naked, and were stung exceedingly<br/>
By gadflies and by hornets that were there.</p>
<p>
These did their faces irrigate with blood,<br/>
Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet<br/>
By the disgusting worms was gathered up.</p>
<p>
And when to gazing farther I betook me.<br/>
People I saw on a great river’s bank;<br/>
Whence said I: “Master, now vouchsafe to me,</p>
<p>
That I may know who these are, and what law<br/>
Makes them appear so ready to pass over,<br/>
As I discern athwart the dusky light.”</p>
<p>
And he to me: “These things shall all be known<br/>
To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay<br/>
Upon the dismal shore of Acheron.”</p>
<p>
Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,<br/>
Fearing my words might irksome be to him,<br/>
From speech refrained I till we reached the river.</p>
<p>
And lo! towards us coming in a boat<br/>
An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,<br/>
Crying: “Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!</p>
<p>
Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;<br/>
I come to lead you to the other shore,<br/>
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.</p>
<p>
And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,<br/>
Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!”<br/>
But when he saw that I did not withdraw,</p>
<p>
He said: “By other ways, by other ports<br/>
Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;<br/>
A lighter vessel needs must carry thee.”</p>
<p>
And unto him the Guide: “Vex thee not, Charon;<br/>
It is so willed there where is power to do<br/>
That which is willed; and farther question not.”</p>
<p>
Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks<br/>
Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,<br/>
Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.</p>
<p>
But all those souls who weary were and naked<br/>
Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,<br/>
As soon as they had heard those cruel words.</p>
<p>
God they blasphemed and their progenitors,<br/>
The human race, the place, the time, the seed<br/>
Of their engendering and of their birth!</p>
<p>
Thereafter all together they drew back,<br/>
Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,<br/>
Which waiteth every man who fears not God.</p>
<p>
Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,<br/>
Beckoning to them, collects them all together,<br/>
Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.</p>
<p>
As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,<br/>
First one and then another, till the branch<br/>
Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;</p>
<p>
In similar wise the evil seed of Adam<br/>
Throw themselves from that margin one by one,<br/>
At signals, as a bird unto its lure.</p>
<p>
So they depart across the dusky wave,<br/>
And ere upon the other side they land,<br/>
Again on this side a new troop assembles.</p>
<p>
“My son,” the courteous Master said to me,<br/>
“All those who perish in the wrath of God<br/>
Here meet together out of every land;</p>
<p>
And ready are they to pass o’er the river,<br/>
Because celestial Justice spurs them on,<br/>
So that their fear is turned into desire.</p>
<p>
This way there never passes a good soul;<br/>
And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,<br/>
Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports.”</p>
<p>
This being finished, all the dusk champaign<br/>
Trembled so violently, that of that terror<br/>
The recollection bathes me still with sweat.</p>
<p>
The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,<br/>
And fulminated a vermilion light,<br/>
Which overmastered in me every sense,</p>
<p>
And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.</p>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoI.IV"></SPAN>Inferno: Canto IV</h2>
<p>
Broke the deep lethargy within my head<br/>
A heavy thunder, so that I upstarted,<br/>
Like to a person who by force is wakened;</p>
<p>
And round about I moved my rested eyes,<br/>
Uprisen erect, and steadfastly I gazed,<br/>
To recognise the place wherein I was.</p>
<p>
True is it, that upon the verge I found me<br/>
Of the abysmal valley dolorous,<br/>
That gathers thunder of infinite ululations.</p>
<p>
Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous,<br/>
So that by fixing on its depths my sight<br/>
Nothing whatever I discerned therein.</p>
<p>
“Let us descend now into the blind world,”<br/>
Began the Poet, pallid utterly;<br/>
“I will be first, and thou shalt second be.”</p>
<p>
And I, who of his colour was aware,<br/>
Said: “How shall I come, if thou art afraid,<br/>
Who’rt wont to be a comfort to my fears?”</p>
<p>
And he to me: “The anguish of the people<br/>
Who are below here in my face depicts<br/>
That pity which for terror thou hast taken.</p>
<p>
Let us go on, for the long way impels us.”<br/>
Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter<br/>
The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.</p>
<p>
There, as it seemed to me from listening,<br/>
Were lamentations none, but only sighs,<br/>
That tremble made the everlasting air.</p>
<p>
And this arose from sorrow without torment,<br/>
Which the crowds had, that many were and great,<br/>
Of infants and of women and of men.</p>
<p>
To me the Master good: “Thou dost not ask<br/>
What spirits these, which thou beholdest, are?<br/>
Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther,</p>
<p>
That they sinned not; and if they merit had,<br/>
’Tis not enough, because they had not baptism<br/>
Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;</p>
<p>
And if they were before Christianity,<br/>
In the right manner they adored not God;<br/>
And among such as these am I myself.</p>
<p>
For such defects, and not for other guilt,<br/>
Lost are we and are only so far punished,<br/>
That without hope we live on in desire.”</p>
<p>
Great grief seized on my heart when this I heard,<br/>
Because some people of much worthiness<br/>
I knew, who in that Limbo were suspended.</p>
<p>
“Tell me, my Master, tell me, thou my Lord,”<br/>
Began I, with desire of being certain<br/>
Of that Faith which o’ercometh every error,</p>
<p>
“Came any one by his own merit hence,<br/>
Or by another’s, who was blessed thereafter?”<br/>
And he, who understood my covert speech,</p>
<p>
Replied: “I was a novice in this state,<br/>
When I saw hither come a Mighty One,<br/>
With sign of victory incoronate.</p>
<p>
Hence he drew forth the shade of the First Parent,<br/>
And that of his son Abel, and of Noah,<br/>
Of Moses the lawgiver, and the obedient</p>
<p>
Abraham, patriarch, and David, king,<br/>
Israel with his father and his children,<br/>
And Rachel, for whose sake he did so much,</p>
<p>
And others many, and he made them blessed;<br/>
And thou must know, that earlier than these<br/>
Never were any human spirits saved.”</p>
<p>
We ceased not to advance because he spake,<br/>
But still were passing onward through the forest,<br/>
The forest, say I, of thick-crowded ghosts.</p>
<p>
Not very far as yet our way had gone<br/>
This side the summit, when I saw a fire<br/>
That overcame a hemisphere of darkness.</p>
<p>
We were a little distant from it still,<br/>
But not so far that I in part discerned not<br/>
That honourable people held that place.</p>
<p>
“O thou who honourest every art and science,<br/>
Who may these be, which such great honour have,<br/>
That from the fashion of the rest it parts them?”</p>
<p>
And he to me: “The honourable name,<br/>
That sounds of them above there in thy life,<br/>
Wins grace in Heaven, that so advances them.”</p>
<p>
In the mean time a voice was heard by me:<br/>
“All honour be to the pre-eminent Poet;<br/>
His shade returns again, that was departed.”</p>
<p>
After the voice had ceased and quiet was,<br/>
Four mighty shades I saw approaching us;<br/>
Semblance had they nor sorrowful nor glad.</p>
<p>
To say to me began my gracious Master:<br/>
“Him with that falchion in his hand behold,<br/>
Who comes before the three, even as their lord.</p>
<p>
That one is Homer, Poet sovereign;<br/>
He who comes next is Horace, the satirist;<br/>
The third is Ovid, and the last is Lucan.</p>
<p>
Because to each of these with me applies<br/>
The name that solitary voice proclaimed,<br/>
They do me honour, and in that do well.”</p>
<p>
Thus I beheld assemble the fair school<br/>
Of that lord of the song pre-eminent,<br/>
Who o’er the others like an eagle soars.</p>
<p>
When they together had discoursed somewhat,<br/>
They turned to me with signs of salutation,<br/>
And on beholding this, my Master smiled;</p>
<p>
And more of honour still, much more, they did me,<br/>
In that they made me one of their own band;<br/>
So that the sixth was I, ’mid so much wit.</p>
<p>
Thus we went on as far as to the light,<br/>
Things saying ’tis becoming to keep silent,<br/>
As was the saying of them where I was.</p>
<p>
We came unto a noble castle’s foot,<br/>
Seven times encompassed with lofty walls,<br/>
Defended round by a fair rivulet;</p>
<p>
This we passed over even as firm ground;<br/>
Through portals seven I entered with these Sages;<br/>
We came into a meadow of fresh verdure.</p>
<p>
People were there with solemn eyes and slow,<br/>
Of great authority in their countenance;<br/>
They spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.</p>
<p>
Thus we withdrew ourselves upon one side<br/>
Into an opening luminous and lofty,<br/>
So that they all of them were visible.</p>
<p>
There opposite, upon the green enamel,<br/>
Were pointed out to me the mighty spirits,<br/>
Whom to have seen I feel myself exalted.</p>
<p>
I saw Electra with companions many,<br/>
’Mongst whom I knew both Hector and Aeneas,<br/>
Caesar in armour with gerfalcon eyes;</p>
<p>
I saw Camilla and Penthesilea<br/>
On the other side, and saw the King Latinus,<br/>
Who with Lavinia his daughter sat;</p>
<p>
I saw that Brutus who drove Tarquin forth,<br/>
Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia,<br/>
And saw alone, apart, the Saladin.</p>
<p>
When I had lifted up my brows a little,<br/>
The Master I beheld of those who know,<br/>
Sit with his philosophic family.</p>
<p>
All gaze upon him, and all do him honour.<br/>
There I beheld both Socrates and Plato,<br/>
Who nearer him before the others stand;</p>
<p>
Democritus, who puts the world on chance,<br/>
Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales,<br/>
Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus;</p>
<p>
Of qualities I saw the good collector,<br/>
Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus saw I,<br/>
Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca,</p>
<p>
Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy,<br/>
Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna,<br/>
Averroes, who the great Comment made.</p>
<p>
I cannot all of them pourtray in full,<br/>
Because so drives me onward the long theme,<br/>
That many times the word comes short of fact.</p>
<p>
The sixfold company in two divides;<br/>
Another way my sapient Guide conducts me<br/>
Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles;</p>
<p>
And to a place I come where nothing shines.</p>
<h2><SPAN name="CantoI.V"></SPAN>Inferno: Canto V</h2>
<p>
Thus I descended out of the first circle<br/>
Down to the second, that less space begirds,<br/>
And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.</p>
<p>
There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;<br/>
Examines the transgressions at the entrance;<br/>
Judges, and sends according as he girds him.</p>
<p>
I say, that when the spirit evil-born<br/>
Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;<br/>
And this discriminator of transgressions</p>
<p>
Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;<br/>
Girds himself with his tail as many times<br/>
As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.</p>
<p>
Always before him many of them stand;<br/>
They go by turns each one unto the judgment;<br/>
They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.</p>
<p>
“O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry<br/>
Comest,” said Minos to me, when he saw me,<br/>
Leaving the practice of so great an office,</p>
<p>
“Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;<br/>
Let not the portal’s amplitude deceive thee.”<br/>
And unto him my Guide: “Why criest thou too?</p>
<p>
Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;<br/>
It is so willed there where is power to do<br/>
That which is willed; and ask no further question.”</p>
<p>
And now begin the dolesome notes to grow<br/>
Audible unto me; now am I come<br/>
There where much lamentation strikes upon me.</p>
<p>
I came into a place mute of all light,<br/>
Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,<br/>
If by opposing winds ’t is combated.</p>
<p>
The infernal hurricane that never rests<br/>
Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;<br/>
Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.</p>
<p>
When they arrive before the precipice,<br/>
There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,<br/>
There they blaspheme the puissance divine.</p>
<p>
I understood that unto such a torment<br/>
The carnal malefactors were condemned,<br/>
Who reason subjugate to appetite.</p>
<p>
And as the wings of starlings bear them on<br/>
In the cold season in large band and full,<br/>
So doth that blast the spirits maledict;</p>
<p>
It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;<br/>
No hope doth comfort them for evermore,<br/>
Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.</p>
<p>
And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,<br/>
Making in air a long line of themselves,<br/>
So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,</p>
<p>
Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.<br/>
Whereupon said I: “Master, who are those<br/>
People, whom the black air so castigates?”</p>
<p>
“The first of those, of whom intelligence<br/>
Thou fain wouldst have,” then said he unto me,<br/>
“The empress was of many languages.</p>
<p>
To sensual vices she was so abandoned,<br/>
That lustful she made licit in her law,<br/>
To remove the blame to which she had been led.</p>
<p>
She is Semiramis, of whom we read<br/>
That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;<br/>
She held the land which now the Sultan rules.</p>
<p>
The next is she who killed herself for love,<br/>
And broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus;<br/>
Then Cleopatra the voluptuous.”</p>
<p>
Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless<br/>
Seasons revolved; and saw the great Achilles,<br/>
Who at the last hour combated with Love.</p>
<p>
Paris I saw, Tristan; and more than a thousand<br/>
Shades did he name and point out with his finger,<br/>
Whom Love had separated from our life.</p>
<p>
After that I had listened to my Teacher,<br/>
Naming the dames of eld and cavaliers,<br/>
Pity prevailed, and I was nigh bewildered.</p>
<p>
And I began: “O Poet, willingly<br/>
Speak would I to those two, who go together,<br/>
And seem upon the wind to be so light.”</p>
<p>
And, he to me: “Thou’lt mark, when they shall be<br/>
Nearer to us; and then do thou implore them<br/>
By love which leadeth them, and they will come.”</p>
<p>
Soon as the wind in our direction sways them,<br/>
My voice uplift I: “O ye weary souls!<br/>
Come speak to us, if no one interdicts it.”</p>
<p>
As turtle-doves, called onward by desire,<br/>
With open and steady wings to the sweet nest<br/>
Fly through the air by their volition borne,</p>
<p>
So came they from the band where Dido is,<br/>
Approaching us athwart the air malign,<br/>
So strong was the affectionate appeal.</p>
<p>
“O living creature gracious and benignant,<br/>
Who visiting goest through the purple air<br/>
Us, who have stained the world incarnadine,</p>
<p>
If were the King of the Universe our friend,<br/>
We would pray unto him to give thee peace,<br/>
Since thou hast pity on our woe perverse.</p>
<p>
Of what it pleases thee to hear and speak,<br/>
That will we hear, and we will speak to you,<br/>
While silent is the wind, as it is now.</p>
<p>
Sitteth the city, wherein I was born,<br/>
Upon the sea-shore where the Po descends<br/>
To rest in peace with all his retinue.</p>
<p>
Love, that on gentle heart doth swiftly seize,<br/>
Seized this man for the person beautiful<br/>
That was ta’en from me, and still the mode offends me.</p>
<p>
Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,<br/>
Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,<br/>
That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me;</p>
<p>
Love has conducted us unto one death;<br/>
Caina waiteth him who quenched our life!”<br/>
These words were borne along from them to us.</p>
<p>
As soon as I had heard those souls tormented,<br/>
I bowed my face, and so long held it down<br/>
Until the Poet said to me: “What thinkest?”</p>
<p>
When I made answer, I began: “Alas!<br/>
How many pleasant thoughts, how much desire,<br/>
Conducted these unto the dolorous pass!”</p>
<p>
Then unto them I turned me, and I spake,<br/>
And I began: “Thine agonies, Francesca,<br/>
Sad and compassionate to weeping make me.</p>
<p>
But tell me, at the time of those sweet sighs,<br/>
By what and in what manner Love conceded,<br/>
That you should know your dubious desires?”</p>
<p>
And she to me: “There is no greater sorrow<br/>
Than to be mindful of the happy time<br/>
In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.</p>
<p>
But, if to recognise the earliest root<br/>
Of love in us thou hast so great desire,<br/>
I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.</p>
<p>
One day we reading were for our delight<br/>
Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral.<br/>
Alone we were and without any fear.</p>
<p>
Full many a time our eyes together drew<br/>
That reading, and drove the colour from our faces;<br/>
But one point only was it that o’ercame us.</p>
<p>
When as we read of the much-longed-for smile<br/>
Being by such a noble lover kissed,<br/>
This one, who ne’er from me shall be divided,</p>
<p>
Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.<br/>
Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.<br/>
That day no farther did we read therein.”</p>
<p>
And all the while one spirit uttered this,<br/>
The other one did weep so, that, for pity,<br/>
I swooned away as if I had been dying,</p>
<p>
And fell, even as a dead body falls.</p>
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