Inferno, Canto III

"Through me the way is to the city dolent;

Through me the way is to eternal dole;

Through me the way among the people lost.

Justice incited my sublime Creator;

Created me divine Omnipotence,

The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

Before me there were no created things,

Only eterne, and I eternal last.

All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

These words in sombre colour I beheld

Written upon the summit of a gate;

Whence I: "Their sense is, Master, hard to me!"

And he to me, as one experienced:

"Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,

All cowardice must needs be here extinct.

We to the place have come, where I have told thee

Thou shalt behold the people dolorous

Who have foregone the good of intellect."

And after he had laid his hand on mine

With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,

He led me in among the secret things.

There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud

Resounded through the air without a star,

Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.

Languages diverse, horrible dialects,

Accents of anger, words of agony,

And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,

Made up a tumult that goes whirling on

For ever in that air for ever black,

Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.

And I, who had my head with horror bound,

Said: "Master, what is this which now I hear?

What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?"

And he to me: "This miserable mode

Maintain the melancholy souls of those

Who lived withouten infamy or praise.

Commingled are they with that caitiff choir

Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,

Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.

The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;

Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,

For glory none the damned would have from them."

And I: "O Master, what so grievous is

To these, that maketh them lament so sore?"

He answered: "I will tell thee very briefly.

These have no longer any hope of death;

And this blind life of theirs is so debased,

They envious are of every other fate.

No fame of them the world permits to be;

Misericord and Justice both disdain them.

Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass."

And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,

Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,

That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;

And after it there came so long a train

Of people, that I ne'er would have believed

That ever Death so many had undone.

When some among them I had recognised,

I looked, and I beheld the shade of him

Who made through cowardice the great refusal.

Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,

That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches

Hateful to God and to his enemies.

These miscreants, who never were alive,

Were naked, and were stung exceedingly

By gadflies and by hornets that were there.

These did their faces irrigate with blood,

Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet

By the disgusting worms was gathered up.

And when to gazing farther I betook me.

People I saw on a great river's bank;

Whence said I: "Master, now vouchsafe to me,

That I may know who these are, and what law

Makes them appear so ready to pass over,

As I discern athwart the dusky light."

And he to me: "These things shall all be known

To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay

Upon the dismal shore of Acheron."

Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,

Fearing my words might irksome be to him,

From speech refrained I till we reached the river.

And lo! towards us coming in a boat

An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,

Crying: "Woe unto you, ye souls depraved!

Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;

I come to lead you to the other shore,

To the eternal shades in heat and frost.

And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,

Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead!"

But when he saw that I did not withdraw,

He said: "By other ways, by other ports

Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for passage;

A lighter vessel needs must carry thee."

And unto him the Guide: "Vex thee not, Charon;

It is so willed there where is power to do

That which is willed; and farther question not."

Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks

Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,

Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.

But all those souls who weary were and naked

Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,

As soon as they had heard those cruel words.

God they blasphemed and their progenitors,

The human race, the place, the time, the seed

Of their engendering and of their birth!

Thereafter all together they drew back,

Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,

Which waiteth every man who fears not God.

Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,

Beckoning to them, collects them all together,

Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.

As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,

First one and then another, till the branch

Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;

In similar wise the evil seed of Adam

Throw themselves from that margin one by one,

At signals, as a bird unto its lure.

So they depart across the dusky wave,

And ere upon the other side they land,

Again on this side a new troop assembles.

"My son," the courteous Master said to me,

"All those who perish in the wrath of God

Here meet together out of every land;

And ready are they to pass o'er the river,

Because celestial Justice spurs them on,

So that their fear is turned into desire.

This way there never passes a good soul;

And hence if Charon doth complain of thee,

Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports."

This being finished, all the dusk champaign

Trembled so violently, that of that terror

The recollection bathes me still with sweat.

The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,

And fulminated a vermilion light,

Which overmastered in me every sense,

And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.