Dante Alighieri
translation: Rev. H. F. Cary

THE DIVINE COMEDY - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell
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CANTO III

 "THROUGH me you pass into the city of woe:
 Through me you pass into eternal pain:
 Through me among the people lost for aye.
 Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
 To rear me was the task of power divine,
 Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
 Before me things create were none, save things
 Eternal, and eternal I endure.
 
 

 

 
 "All hope abandon ye who enter here."
 
 Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
 Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:
 Whereat I thus: "Master, these words import
 Hard meaning."  He as one prepar'd replied:
 "Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave;
 Here be vile fear extinguish'd. We are come
 Where I have told thee we shall see the souls
 To misery doom'd, who intellectual good
 Have lost."  And when his hand he had stretch'd forth
 To mine, with pleasant looks, whence I was cheer'd,
 Into that secret place he led me on.
 
 Here sighs with lamentations and loud moans
 Resounded through the air pierc'd by no star,
 That e'en I wept at entering.  Various tongues,
 Horrible languages, outcries of woe,
 Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse,
 With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds,
 Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls
 Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd,
 Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.
 
 I then, with error yet encompass'd, cried:
 "O master!  What is this I hear?  What race
 Are these, who seem so overcome with woe?"
 
 He thus to me: "This miserable fate
 Suffer the wretched souls of those, who liv'd
 Without or praise or blame, with that ill band
 Of angels mix'd, who nor rebellious prov'd
 Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
 Were only.  From his bounds Heaven drove them forth,
 Not to impair his lustre, nor the depth
 Of Hell receives them, lest th' accursed tribe
 Should glory thence with exultation vain."
 
 I then: "Master! what doth aggrieve them thus,
 That they lament so loud?"  He straight replied:
 "That will I tell thee briefly.  These of death
 No hope may entertain: and their blind life
 So meanly passes, that all other lots
 They envy.  Fame of them the world hath none,
 Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both.
 Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by."
 
 And I, who straightway look'd, beheld a flag,
 Which whirling ran around so rapidly,
 That it no pause obtain'd: and following came
 Such a long train of spirits, I should ne'er
 Have thought, that death so many had despoil'd.
 
 When some of these I recogniz'd, I saw
 And knew the shade of him, who to base fear
 Yielding, abjur'd his high estate.  Forthwith
 I understood for certain this the tribe
 Of those ill spirits both to God displeasing
 And to his foes.  These wretches, who ne'er lived,
 Went on in nakedness, and sorely stung
 By wasps and hornets, which bedew'd their cheeks
 With blood, that mix'd with tears dropp'd to their feet,
 And by disgustful worms (...)
(......)