s: He would not, armed with beauty, only reign


s: On those affects which easily yield to sight;


s: But virtue sets so high, that reason's light,


s: For all his strife can only bondage gain:


s: Dead palsy-sick of all my chiefest parts,


s: Like those whom dreams make ugly monsters see,


s: And can cry help with naught but groans and starts:


s: To starving minds such is god Cupid's dish.


s: To the tune of "Non credo gia che piu infelice amante."


s: The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth


s: While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,


s: Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making;


s: For Tereus' force on her chaste will prevailing.


s: O Philomela fair!  O take some gladness,


s: That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness:


s: Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.


s: Alas! she hath no other cause of anguish,


s: But Tereus' love, on her by strong hand wroken,


s: Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish,


s: Full womanlike, complains her will was broken,


s: Since wanting is more woe than too much having.


s: Sleep, baby mine, Desire's nurse, Beauty, singeth;


s: Thy cries, O baby, set mine head on aching:


s: The babe cries, "'Way, thy love doth keep me waking."


s: Lully, lully, my babe, Hope cradle bringeth


s: Unto my children alway good rest taking:


s: The babe cries, "Way, thy love doth keep me waking."


s: Since, baby mine, from me thy watching springeth,


s: Sleep then a little, pap Content is making;


s: The babe cries, "Nay, for that abide I waking."


s: The scourge of life, and death's extreme disgrace;


s: The smoke of hell, the monster called Pain:


s: Long shamed to be accursed in every place,


s: By them who of his rude resort complain;


s: Like crafty wretch, by time and travel taught,


s: Late harbours in her face, whom Nature wrought


s: As treasure-house where her best gifts do bide;


s: A seat where beauty shines and virtue reigns,


s: He hopes for some small praise, since she hath great,


s: Within her beams wrapping his cruel stains.


s: Ah, saucy Pain, let not thy terror last,


s: More loving eyes she draws, more hate thou hast.


s: My burning tongue hath bred my mistress pain?


s: For oft in pain, to pain my painful heart,


s: With her due praise did of my state complain.


s: I praised her eyes, whom never chance doth move;


s: Her breath, which makes a sour answer sweet;


s: Her milken breasts, the nurse of child-like love;


s: Her legs, O legs! her aye well-stepping feet:


s: Pain heard her praise, and full of inward fire,


s: (First sealing up my heart as prey of his)


s: He flies to her, and, boldened with desire,


s: Her face, this age's praise, the thief doth kiss.


s: O Pain!  I now recant the praise I gave,


s: And swear she is not worthy thee to have.


s: Thou pain, the only guest of loathed Constraint;


s: The child of Curse, man's weakness foster-child;


s: Brother to Woe, and father of Complaint:


s: Thou Pain, thou hated Pain, from heaven exiled,


s: How hold'st thou her whose eyes constraint doth fear,


s: Whom cursed do bless; whose weakness virtues arm;


s: Who others' woes and plaints can chastely bear:


s: In whose sweet heaven angels of high thoughts swarm?


s: What courage strange hath caught thy caitiff heart?


s: Fear'st not a face that oft whole hearts devours?


s: Or art thou from above bid play this part,


s: And so no help 'gainst envy of those powers?


s: If thus, alas, yet while those parts have woe;


s: So stay her tongue, that she no more say, "O."


s: And have I heard her say, "O cruel pain!"


s: And doth she know what mould her beauty bears?


s: Mourns she in truth, and thinks that others feign?


s: Fears she to feel, and feels not others' fears?


s: Or doth she think all pain the mind forbears?


s: That heavy earth, not fiery spirits, may plain?


s: That eyes weep worse than heart in bloody tears?


s: That sense feels more than what doth sense contain?


s: No, no, she is too wise, she knows her face


s: Hath not such pain as it makes others have:


s: She knows the sickness of that perfect place


s: Hath yet such health, as it my life can save.


s: But this, she thinks, our pain high cause excuseth,


s: Where her, who should rule pain, false pain abuseth.


s: Like as the dove, which seeled up doth fly,


s: Is neither freed, nor yet to service bound;


s: But hopes to gain some help by mounting high,


s: Till want of force do force her fall to ground:


s: Right so my mind, caught by his guiding eye,


s: And thence cast off where his sweet hurt he found,


s: Hath neither leave to live, nor doom to die;


s: Nor held in evil, nor suffered to be sound.


s: But with his wings of fancies up he goes,


s: To high conceits, whose fruits are oft but small;


s: Till wounded, blind, and wearied spirit, lose


s: Both force to fly, and knowledge where to fall:


s: In wonted walks, since wonted fancies change,


s: Some cause there is, which of strange cause doth rise:


s: For in each thing whereto mine eye doth range,


s: Part of my pain, me-seems, engraved lies.


s: The rocks, which were of constant mind the mark,


s: In climbing steep, now hard refusal show;


s: The shading woods seem now my sun to dark,


s: And stately hills disdain to look so low.


s: The restful caves now restless visions give;


s: Like late-mown meads, late cut from joy I live;


s: Alas, sweet brooks do in my tears augment:


s: Rocks, woods, hills, caves, dales, meads, brooks, answer me;


s: Infected minds infect each thing they see.


s: If I could think how these my thoughts to leave,


s: Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good end;


s: If rebel sense would reason's law receive;


s: Or reason foiled, would not in vain contend:


s: Then might I think what thoughts were best to think:


s: Then might I wisely swim, or gladly sink.


s: If either you would change your cruel heart,


s: Or, cruel still, time did your beauties stain:


s: If from my soul this love would once depart,


s: Or for my love some love I might obtain;


s: Then might I hope a change, or ease of mind,


s: By your good help, or in myself, to find.


s: But since my thoughts in thinking still are spent.


s: With reason's strife, by senses overthrown;


s: You fairer still, and still more cruel bent,


s: I yield and strive, I kiss and curse the pain,


s: Thought, reason, sense, time, You, and I, maintain.


s: Oft have I mused, but now at length I find


s: Why those that die, men say, they do depart:


s: Weakly did seem to paint Death's ugly dart.


s: But now the stars, with their strange course, do bind


s: Me one to leave, with whom I leave my heart;


s: I hear a cry of spirits faint and blind,


s: That parting thus, my chiefest part I part.


s: Part of my life, the loathed part to me,


s: Lives to impart my weary clay some breath;


s: But that good part wherein all comforts be,


s: Now dead, doth show departure is a death:


s: Yea, worse than death, death parts both woe and joy,


s: Finding those beams, which I must ever love,


s: To mar my mind, and with my hurt to please,


s: I deemed it best, some absence for to prove,


s: If farther place might further me to ease.


s: My eyes thence drawn, where lived all their light,


s: Blinded forthwith in dark despair did lie,


s: Like to the mole, with want of guiding sight,


s: Deep plunged in earth, deprived of the sky.


s: In absence blind, and wearied with that woe,


s: Even as the fly, which to the flame doth go,


s: Pleased with the light, that his small corse doth burn:


s: Fair choice I have, either to live or die


s: Near Wilton sweet, huge heaps of stones are found,


s: Can count them just, nor Reason reason try,


s: What force brought them to so unlikely ground.


s: To stranger weights my mind's waste soil is bound,


s: Of passion-hills, reaching to Reason's sky,


s: From Fancy's earth, passing all number's bound,


s: Passing all guess, whence into me should fly


s: A simple soul should breed so mixed woes.


s: The Bruertons have a lake, which, when the sun


s: Approaching warms, not else, dead logs up sends


s: From hideous depth; which tribute, when it ends,


s: Sore sign it is the lord's last thread is spun.


s: My lake is Sense, whose still streams never run


s: But when my sun her shining twins there bends;


s: Then from his depth with force in her begun,


s: Long drowned hopes to watery eyes it lends;


s: But when that fails my dead hopes up to take,


s: Their master is fair warned his will to make.


s: We have a fish, by strangers much admired,


s: Which caught, to cruel search yields his chief part:


s: With gall cut out, closed up again by art,


s: Yet lives until his life be new required.


s: A stranger fish myself, not yet expired,


s: Tho', rapt with Beauty's hook, I did impart


s: Instead of gall, leaving to her my heart:


s: Yet live with thoughts closed up, 'till that she will,


s: By conquest's right, instead of searching, kill.


s: Peak hath a cave, whose narrow entries find


s: Large rooms within where drops distil amain:


s: Till knit with cold, though there unknown remain,


s: Deck that poor place with alabaster lined.


s: Mine eyes the strait, the roomy cave, my mind;


s: Whose cloudy thoughts let fall an inward rain


s: Of sorrow's drops, till colder reason bind


s: Which, though despised, yet still doth truth endure.


s: A field there is, where, if a stake oe prest


s: Deep in the earth, what hath in earth receipt,


s: Is changed to stone in hardness, cold, and weight,


s: The wood above doth soon consuming rest.


s: The earth her ears; the stake is my request;


s: Of which, how much may pierce to that sweet seat,


s: To honour turned, doth dwell in honour's nest,


s: Keeping that form, though void of wonted heat;


s: But all the rest, which fear durst not apply,


s: Failing themselves, with withered conscience die.


s: Of ships by shipwreck cast on Albion's coast,


s: Which rotting on the rocks, their death to die:


s: From wooden bones and blood of pitch doth fly


s: A bird, which gets more life than ship had lost.


s: My ship, Desire, with wind of Lust long tost,


s: Brake on fair cliffs of constant Chastity;


s: Where plagued for rash attempt, gives up his ghost;


s: So deep in seas of virtue, beauties lie:


s: But of this death flies up the purest love,


s: Which seeming less, yet nobler life doth move.


s: These wonders England breeds; the last remains -


s: On whom all love, in whom no love is placed,


s: Where Fairness yields to Wisdom's shortest reins.


s: A humble pride, a scorn that favour stains;


s: A woman's mould, but like an angel graced;


s: A heaven on earth, or earth that heaven contains:


s: She is the cause that all the rest I am.


s: Thou blind man's mark; thou fool's self-chosen snare,


s: Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought:


s: Band of all evils; cradle of causeless care;


s: Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought:


s: Desire! Desire!  I have too dearly bought,


s: With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware;


s: Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought


s: Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare;


s: But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought;


s: In vain thou mad'st me to vain things aspire;


s: In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire:


s: For Virtue hath this better lesson taught,


s: Leave me, O love! which reachest but to dust;


s: And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things:


s: Grow rich in that which never taketh rust;


s: Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.


s: Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might


s: To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be,


s: Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light


s: That doth both shine, and give us sight to see.


s: O take fast hold! let that light be thy guide,


s: In this small course which birth draws out to death,


s: And think how evil becometh him to slide,


s: Who seeketh heaven, and comes from heavenly breath.


s: Then farewell, world, thy uttermost I see,


s: {1}  Edward Wotton, elder brother of Sir Henry Wotton.  He was


s: knighted by Elizabeth in 1592, and made Comptroller of her


s: {2}  Here the introduction ends, and the argument begins with its


s: {3}  A fable from the "Hetamythium" of Laurentius Abstemius,


s: vipers, impatient to be born, break through the side of their


s: {5}  Part 2.  Borrowed from by Philosophers.


s: through Solon, by family tradition to Critias.  But first Timaeus


s: {8}  Part 3.  Borrowed from by Historians.


s: {10}  Part 5.  And really sacred and prophetic in the Psalms of


s: {15}  Here a Second Part of the Essay begins.


s: {18} Philosophical, which is perhaps too imitative.


s: {19} Marcus Manilius wrote under Tiberius a metrical treatise on


s: Astronomy, of which five books on the fixed stars remain.


s: {21}  Part 3.  Subdivisions of Poetry proper.


s: {22}  Its essence is in the thought, not in apparelling of verse.


s: {24}  The Poet's Work and Parts.  Part 1. WORK:  What Poetry does


s: Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."


s: {27}  Its advantage herein over Moral Philosophy.


s: {28}  It's advantage herein over History.


s: {29}  "All men make faults, and even I in this,


s: {30}  "Witness of the times, light of truth, life of memory,


s: mistress of life, messenger of antiquity."--Cicero, "De Oratore."


s: {31}  In what manner the Poet goes beyond Philosopher, Historian,


s: {33}  Horace's "Ars Poetica," lines 372-3.  But Horace wrote "Non


s: text-book in the days of James I. and Charles I., "Because it is


s: impossible thus to read through all authors, there are books that


s: matter."  Frequent resort to the Polyanthea caused many a good


s: {38}  Quintus Curtius, a Roman historian of uncertain date, who


s: {41}  In "Love's Labour's Lost" a resemblance has been fancied


s: between this passage and Rosalind's description of Biron, and the


s: "Which his fair tongue--conceit's expositor -


s: Delivers in such apt and gracious words,


s: That aged ears play truant at his tables,


s: And younger hearings are quite ravished,


s: {43}  Instances of the power of the Poet's work.


s: "Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico


s: Tangit, et admissus circum praecordia ludit," &c.


s: Shrewd Flaccus touches each vice in his laughing friend.  Dryden


s: "Unlike in method, with concealed design


s: Laughed at his friend, and looked him in the face:


s: Would raise a blush where secret vice he found;


s: And tickle, while he gently probed the wound;


s: With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled,


s: But made the desperate passes while he smiled."


s: {51}  From the end of the eleventh of Horace's epistles (Lib. 1):


s: "Coelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt,


s: Strenua nos exercet inertia; navibus atque


s: Quadrigis petimus bene vivere.  Quod petis, hic est,


s: Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus."


s: With force of ships and four horse teams.  That which you seek is


s: At Ulubrae, unless your mind fail to be calm and clear.


s: enfranchisement is even this?  When your ideal world, wherein the


s: amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm Meister, that your


s: miserable hampered actual wherein thou even now standest, here or


s: that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic?  O thou that


s: {55}  The old song of Percy and Douglas, Chevy Chase in its first


s: {60}  Cornelius Agrippa's book, "De Incertitudine et Vanitate


s: Scientiarum et Artium," was first published in 1532; Erasmus's


s: "Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit:


s: A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of fame but


s: {66}  That poetry is the mother of lies.


s: {67}  That poetry is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with wanton


s: {68}  Rampire, rampart, the Old French form of "rempart," was


s: {70}  That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic.


s: {71}  Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers would


s: {72}  Ion is a rhapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot


s: expounding Homer is not an art acquired by system and method,


s: person, who cannot compose verses at all so long as his reason


s: {76}  From the invocation at the opening of Virgil's AEneid (line


s: {78}  Whose heart-strings the Titan (Prometheus) fastened with a


s: "Some sons, indeed, some very few, we see


s: Who keep themselves from this infection free,


s: Whom gracious Heaven for nobler ends designed,


s: Their looks erected, and their clay refined."


s: {79}  The orator is made, the poet born.


s: {80}  What you will; the first that comes.


s: "Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos,


s: {84}  There was no scenery on the Elizabethan stage.


s: "Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,


s: Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest."


s: {89}  George Bachanan (who died in 1582, aged seventy-six) had


s: written in earlier life four Latin tragedies, when Professor of


s: Humanities at Bordeaux, with Montaigne in his class.


s: {91}  Defects in Diction.  This being written only a year or two


s: {92}  Nizolian paper-books, are commonplace books of quotable


s: dictionary of phrases from Cicero:  "Thesaurus Ciceronianus, sive


s: {93}  "He lives and wins, nay, comes to the Senate, nay, comes to


s: {94}  Pounded.  Put in the pound, when found astray.


s: {97}  Last Summary and playful peroration


s: I     'Imitation' the common principle of the Arts of Poetry.


s: X     (Plot continued.) Definitions of Simple and Complex Plots.


s: XII   The 'quantitative parts' of Tragedy defined.


s: XIII  (Plot continued.) What constitutes Tragic Action.


s: XV    The element of Character in Tragedy.


s: XVIII Further rules for the Tragic Poet.


s: distinguished as writers of heroic or of lampooning verse.


s: Whether Tragedy has as yet perfected its proper types or not; and


s: Of the remaining elements Song holds the chief place among the


s: These principles being established, let us now discuss the proper


s: It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not


s: Two parts, then, of the Plot--Reversal of the Situation and


s: Recognition--turn upon surprises. A third part is the Scene of


s: First, the least artistic form, which, from poverty of wit, is


s: most commonly employed recognition by signs. Of these some are


s: But, of all recognitions, the best is that which arises from the


s: After this, the names being once given, it remains to fill in the


s: of Delivery and to the masters of that science. It includes, for


s: instance,--what is a command, a prayer, a statement, a threat, a


s: A Syllable is a non-significant sound, composed of a mute and a


s: non-significant sound, which out of several sounds, each of them


s: Words are of two kinds, simple and double. By simple I mean those


s: Every word is either current, or strange, or metaphorical, or


s: the day,' and old age, 'the evening of life,' or, in the phrase


s: of Empedocles, 'life's setting sun.' For some of the terms of the


s: An altered word is one in which part of the ordinary form is left


s: Of the various kinds of words, the compound are best adapted to


s: are,--the current or proper, the metaphorical, the ornamental.


s: Again, Epic poetry must have as many kinds as Tragedy: it must be


s: Epic poetry differs from Tragedy in the scale on which it is


s: Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to


s: improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of


s: Other difficulties may be resolved by due regard to the usage of


s: Or again, the question may be solved by punctuation, as in


s: has been treated in this fashion. The critics imagine he was a


s: This book is lovingly dedicated to the dear kindergarten


s: children, and particularly to my little friend, Alice Caro Wing.


s: "Children are God's apostles, day by day sent forth preach of


s: And all the rest are dead."--Longfellow.


s: Thy Father has written for thee."--Longfellow.


s: "Never mind the cold," urged the New Year; "please help me."


s: You are needed down here on earth. It is time to dress my plant


s: But she was not the only one singing a lullaby that bright sunny


s: But they tried to do their best to help her, and kept on growing.


s: Away they went, peeping through the curtains, and flying into the


s: A great brown hand came up behind them and in a moment they found


s: The measure was taken, out into the field, where Farmer Lane was


s: Where were the little raindrops that left Cloudland early in the


s: The flowers nodded, as if they understood what she said.


s: King Winter, The Polar Regions, Cloud-dom.


s: "See the snow, the beautiful snow" they cried; and the sleds were


s: They used to watch the shepherds guarding their flocks upon the


s: hillsides, and one bright evening star that looked down upon the


s: Etext scanned by Dianne Bean of Phoenix, Arizona.


s: It is a happiness for me to connect this volume with the memory


s: of my friend and master from youth. I was but a beginner in the


s: study of the Divine Comedy when I first had his incomparable aid


s: in the understanding of it. During the last year of his life he


s: read the proofs of this volume, to what great advantage to my


s: When, in the early summer of this year, the printing of the


s: Purgatory began, though illness made it an exertion to him, he


s: continued this act of friendship, and did not cease till, at the


s: fifth canto, he laid down the pencil forever from his dear and


s: The text followed in this translation is, in general, that of


s: Witte. In a few cases I have preferred the readings which the


s: more recent researches of the Rev. Dr. Edward Moore, of Oxford,


s: CANTO I. Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill


s: which he begins to ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he


s: turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him into


s: CANTO II. Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at


s: the outset.--Virgil cheers him by telling him that he has been


s: sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit from Heaven.--Dante casts off


s: CANTO III. The gate of Hell. Virgil leads Dante in.--The


s: punishment of the neither good nor bad.--Acheron, and the sinners


s: CANTO IV. The further side of Acheron.--Virgil leads Dante into


s: Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, containing the spirits of those


s: who lived virtuously but without Christianity.--Greeting of


s: Virgil by his fellow poets.--They enter a castle, where are the


s: shades of ancient worthies.--Virgil and Dante depart.


s: CANTO V. The Second Circle: Carnal sinners.--Minos.--Shades


s: CANTO VI. The Third Circle: the Gluttonous.--Cerberus.--Ciacco.


s: CANTO VII. The Fourth Circle: the Avaricious and the Prodigal.--


s: CANTO VIII. The Fifth Circle.--Phlegyas and his boat.--Passage of


s: CANTO IX. The City of Dis.--Eriehtho.--The Three Furies.--The


s: CANTO X. The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.--Farinata degli Uberti.--


s: CANTO XI. The Sixth Circle: Heretics.--Tomb of Pope Anastasius.--


s: CANTO XII. First round of the Seventh Circle: those who do


s: violence to others.--Tyrants and Homicides.--The Minotaur.--The


s: CANTO XIII. Second round of the Seventh Circle: those who have


s: done violence to themselves and to their goods.--The Wood of


s: Self-murderers.--The Harpies.--Pier della Vigne.--Lano of Siena


s: CANTO XIV. Third round of the Seventh Circle those who have done


s: violence to God.--The Burning Sand.--Capaneus.--Figure of the Old


s: CANTO XV. Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have done


s: violence to Nature.--Brunetto Latini.--Prophecies of misfortune


s: CANTO XVI. Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have done


s: CANTO XVII. Third round of the Seventh Circle: those who have


s: done violence to Art.--Geryon.--The Usurers.--Descent to the


s: CANTO XIX. Eighth Circle: third pit: Simonists.--Pope Nicholas


s: CANTO XX. Eighth Circle: fourth pit: Diviners, Soothsayers, and


s: CANTO XXI. Eighth Circle: fifth pit: Barrators.--A magistrate of


s: Lucca.--The Malebranche.--Parley with them.


s: CANTO XXII. Eighth Circle: fifth pit: Barrators.--Ciampolo of


s: CANTO XXIII. Eighth Circle. Escape from the fifth pit.--The sixth


s: CANTO XXIV. Eighth Circle. The poets climb from the sixth pit.--


s: Seventh pit: Fraudulent Thieves.--Vanni Fucci.--Prophecy of


s: CANTO XXV. Eighth Circle: seventh pit: Fraudulent Thieves.--


s: Cacus.--Agnello Brunellesehi and others.


s: CANTO XXVI. Eighth Circle: eighth pit: Fraudulent Counsellors.--


s: CANTO XXVII. Eighth Circle: eighth pit: Fraudulent Counsellors.--


s: CANTO XXVIII. Eighth Circle: ninth pit: Sowers of discord and


s: schism.--Mahomet and Ali.--Fra Dolcino.--Pier da Medicina.--


s: CANTO XXIX. Eighth Circle: ninth pit.--Geri del Bello.--Tenth


s: pit: Falsifiers of all sorts.--Griffolino of Mezzo.--Capocchio.


s: CANTO XXX. Eighth Circle: tenth pit: Falsifiers of all sorts.--


s: CANTO XXXI. The Giants around the Eighth Circle.--Nimrod.--


s: Ephialtes.--Antiens sets the Poets down in the Ninth Circle.


s: CANTO XXXII. Ninth Circle: Traitors. First ring: Caina.--Counts


s: of Mangona.--Camicion de' Pazzi.--Second ring: Antenora.--Bocca


s: degli Abati.--Buoso da Duera.--Count Ugolino.


s: CANTO XXXIII. Ninth Circle: Traitors. Second ring: Antenora.--


s: Count Ugolino.--Third ring: Ptolomaea.--Brother Alberigo.--Branca


s: CANTO XXXIV. Ninth Circle: Traitors. Fourth ring: Judecca.--


s: Lucifer.--Judas, Brutus and Cassius.--Centre of the universe.--


s: Passage from Hell.--Ascent to the surface of the Southern


s: So many versions of the Divine Comedy exist in English that a new


s: in verse, and the intellectual temper of our time is impatient of


s: conditions of verse in different languages vary so widely as to


s: make any versified translation of a poem but an imperfect


s: reproduction of the archetype. It is like an imperfect mirror


s: that renders but a partial likeness, in which essential features


s: are blurred or distorted. Dante himself, the first modern critic,


s: transmuted from its own speech without losing all its sweetness


s: and harmony," and every fresh attempt at translation affords a


s: new proof of the truth of his assertion. Each language exhibits


s: its own special genius in its poetic forms. Even when they are


s: closely similar in rhythmical method their poetic effect is


s: essentially different, their individuality is distinct. The


s: hexameter of the Iliad is not the hexameter of the Aeneid. And if


s: obvious in respect to forms peculiar to one language, like the


s: terza rima of the Italian, for which it is impossible to find a


s: satisfactory equivalent in another tongue.


s: If, then, the attempt be vain to reproduce the form or to


s: represent its effect in a translation, yet the substance of a


s: poem may have such worth that it deserves to be known by readers


s: who must read it in their own tongue or not at all. In this case


s: the aim of the translator should he to render the substance


s: fully, exactly, and with as close a correspondence to the tone


s: and style of the original as is possible between prose and


s: poetry. Of the charm, of the power of the poem such a translation


s: its essence, and the loss of the musical bond is the loss of the


s: beauty to which form and substance mutually contributed, and in


s: which they were both alike harmonized and sublimated. The


s: rhythmic life of the original is its vital spirit, and the


s: translation losing this vital spirit is at best as the dull


s: plaster cast to the living marble or the breathing bronze. The


s: intellectual substance is there; and if the work be good,


s: something of the emotional quality may be conveyed; the


s: imagination may mould the prose as it moulded the verse,--but,


s: after all, "translations are but as turn-coated things at best,"


s: as Howell said in one of his Familiar Letters.


s: No poem in any tongue is more informed with rhythmic life than


s: the Divine Comedy. And yet, such is its extraordinary


s: distinction, no poem has an intellectual and emotional substance


s: more independent of its metrical form. Its complex structure, its


s: so mastered by the genius of the poet as to become the most


s: natural expression of the spirit by which the poem is inspired;


s: while at the same time the thought and sentiment embodied in the


s: verse is of such import, and the narrative of such interest, that


s: another tongue; they still haye power to quicken imagination, and


s: In English there is an excellent prose translation of the


s: Inferno, by Dr. John Carlyle, a man well known to the reader of


s: his brother's Correspondence. It was published forty years ago,


s: but it is still contemporaneous enough in style to answer every


s: need, and had Dr. Carlyle made a version of the whole poem I


s: should hardly have cared to attempt a new one. In my translation


s: of the Inferno I am often Dr. Carlyle's debtor. His conception of


s: the Purgatorio there is a prose version which has excellent


s: qualities, by Mr. W. S. Dugdale. Another version of great merit,


s: of both the Purgatorio and Paradiso, is that of Mr. A. J. Butler.


s: much to Mr. Butler's work. But through what seems to me


s: occasional excess of literal fidelity his English is now and then


s: cite again from Howell, "who doth enslave himself too strictly to


s: I have tried to be as literal in my translation as was consistent


s: nearly correspondent to them as the difference in the languages


s: would permit. But it is to be remembered that the familiar uses


s: and subtle associations which give to words their full meaning


s: are never absolutely the same in two languages. Love in English


s: not only SOUNDS but IS different from amor in Latin, or amore in


s: Italian. Even the most felicitous prose translation must fail


s: therefore at times to afford the entire and precise meaning of


s: Moreover, there are difficulties in Dante's poem for Italians,


s: and there are difficulties in the translation for English


s: readers. These, where it seemed needful, I have endeavored to


s: explain in brief footnotes. But I have desired to avoid


s: distracting the attention of the reader from the narrative, and


s: have mainly left the understanding of it to his good sense and


s: perspicacity. The clearness of Dante's imaginative vision is so


s: complete, and the character of his narration of it so direct and


s: simple, that the difficulties in understanding his intention are


s: It is a noticeable fact that in by far the greater number of


s: passages where a doubt in regard to the interpretation exists,


s: the obscurity lies in the rhyme-word. For with all the abundant


s: resources of the Italian tongue in rhyme, and with all Dante's


s: mastery of them, the truth still is that his triple rhyme often


s: compelled him to exact from words such service as they did not


s: naturally render and as no other poet had required of them. The


s: compiler of the Ottimo Commento records, in an often-cited


s: passage, that "I, the writer, heard Dante say that never a rhyme


s: had led him to say other than he would, but that many a time and


s: oft he had made words say for him what they were not wont to


s: express for other poets." The sentence has a double truth, for it


s: give out their full meaning, but also his invention of new uses


s: for them, his employment of them in unusual significations or in


s: forms hardly elsewhere to be found. These devices occasionally


s: interfere with the limpid flow of his diction, but the


s: difficulties of interpretation to which they give rise serve


s: rather to mark the prevailing clearness and simplicity of his


s: expression than seriously to impede its easy and unperplexed


s: current. There are few sentences in the Divina Commedia in which


s: a difficulty is occasioned by lack of definiteness of thought or


s: A far deeper-lying and more pervading source of imperfect


s: comprehension of the poem than any verbal difficulty exists in


s: the double or triple meaning that runs through it. The narrative


s: of the poet's spiritual journey is so vivid and consistent that


s: it has all the reality of an account of an actual experience; but


s: and hardly less continuous than the narrative itself. To the


s: illustration and carrying out of this interior meaning even the


s: minutest details of external incident are made to contribute,


s: with an appropriateness of significance, and with a freedom from


s: forced interpretation or artificiality of construction such as no


s: this inner meaning is traced, and the moral significance of the


s: incidents of the story apprehended by the alert intelligence. The


s: body it does not show itself in independent existence. It is, in


s: scholastic phrase, the form of the body, giving to it its special


s: appreciate the poem the reader must follow its course with a


s: double intelligence. "Taken literally," as Dante declares in his


s: Letter to Can Grande, "the subject is the state of the soul after


s: is man, according as by his good or ill deserts he renders


s: himself liable to the reward or punishment of Justice." It is the


s: but of the individual life; and herein, as Mr. Lowell, whose


s: phrase I borrow, has said, "lie its profound meaning and its


s: permanent force."  And herein too lie its perennial freshness


s: of interest, and the actuality which makes it contemporaneous


s: with every successive generation. The increase of knowledge, the


s: loss of belief in doctrines that were fundamental in Dante's


s: creed, the changes in the order of society, the new thoughts of


s: the world, have not lessened the moral import of the poem, any


s: more than they have lessened its excellence as a work of art. Its


s: science, of creed, and of institutions. Human nature has not


s: changed; the motives of action are the same, though their


s: relative force and the desires and ideals by which they are


s: inspired vary from generation to generation. And thus it is that


s: the moral judgments of life framed by a great poet whose


s: imagination penetrates to the core of things, and who, from his


s: very nature as poet, conceives and sets forth the issues of life


s: not in a treatise of abstract morality, but by means of sensible


s: types and images, never lose interest, and have a perpetual


s: contemporaneousness. They deal with the permanent and unalterable


s: Mr. Lowell's essay on Dante makes other writing about the


s: poet or the poem seem ineffectual and superfluous. I must assume


s: that it will be familiar to the readers of my version, at least


s: to those among them who desire truly to understand the Divine


s: The scene of the poem is the spiritual world, of which we are


s: members even while still denizens mu the world of time. In the


s: spiritual world the results of sin or perverted love, and of


s: virtue or right love, in this life of probation, are manifest.


s: The life to come is but the fulfilment of the life that now is.


s: This is the truth that Dante sought to enforce. The allegory in


s: which he cloaked it is of a character that separates the Divine


s: Comedy from all other works of similar intent, In The Pilgrim's


s: Progress, for example, the personages introduced are mere


s: simulacra of men and women, the types of moral qualities or


s: religious dispositions. They are abstractions which the genius of


s: imagination of the reader with a sense of their actual, living


s: and breathing existence. But in the Divine Comedy the personages


s: are all from real life, they are men and women with their natural


s: experience. The allegory consists in making their characters and


s: their fates, what all human characters and fates really are, the


s: types and images of spiritual law. Virgil and Beatrice, whose


s: nature as depicted in the poem makes nearest approach to purely


s: abstract and typical existence, are always consistently presented


s: with hardly less definite and concrete humanity than that of


s: The scheme of the created Universe held by the Christians of the


s: Middle Ages was comparatively simple, and so definite that Dante,


s: provided with the limited stage that was requisite for his


s: design, and of which the general disposition was familiar to all


s: his readers. The three spiritual realms had their local bounds


s: marked out as clearly as those of time earth itself. Their


s: cosmography was but an extension of the largely hypothetical


s: The Earth was the centre of the Universe, and its northern


s: hemisphere was the abode of man. At the middle point of this


s: hemisphere stood Jerusalem, equidistant from the Pillars of


s: Within the body of this hemisphere was hell, shared as a vast


s: cone, of which the apex was the centre of the globe; and here,


s: according to Dante, was the seat of Lucifer. The concave of Hell


s: had been formed by his fall, when a portion of the solid earth,


s: through fear of him, ran back to the southern uninhabited


s: hemisphere, and formed there, directly antipodal to Jerusalem,


s: the mountain of Purgatory which rose from the waste of waters


s: that covered this half of the globe. Purgatory was shaped as a


s: cone, of similar dimensions to that of Hell, amid at its summit


s: Immediately surrounding the atmosphere of the Earth was the


s: sphere of elemental fire. Around this was the Heaven of the Moon,


s: Crystalline or first moving Heaven. These nine concentric Heavens


s: all was the Empyrean, increate, incorporeal, motionless,


s: unbounded in time or space, the proper seat of God, the home of


s: The Angelic Hierarchy consisted of nine orders, corresponding to


s: the nine moving heavens. Their blessedness and the swiftness of


s: time motion with which in unending delight they circled around


s: God were in proportion to their nearness to Him, --first the


s: Seraphs, then the Cherubs, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers,


s: name of Intelligences, the Divine influence was transmitted to


s: the Heavens, giving to them their circular motion, which was the


s: expression of their longing to be united with the source of their


s: the Divine influence thus distributed among them, in varying


s: proportion and power, producing divers effects in the generation


s: and corruption of material things, and in the dispositions and


s: Such was the general scheme of the Universe. The intention of God


s: creatures endowed with souls, that is, to men and to angels, and


s: the proper end of every such creature was to seek its own


s: perfection in likeness to time Divine. This end was attained


s: through that knowledge of God of which the soul was capable, and


s: through love which was in proportion to knowledge. Virtue


s: depended on the free will of man; it was the good use of that


s: will directed to a right object of love. Two lights were given to


s: natural things and for the direction of the will to moral virtue


s: the light of grace for things supernatural, and for the direction


s: the choice by the will of false objects of love; it involved the


s: misuse of reason, and the absence of grace. As the end of virtue


s: was blessedness, so the end of sin was misery.


s: The cornerstone of Dante's moral system was the Freedom of the


s: Will; in other words, the right of private judgment with the


s: condition of accountability. This is the liberty which Dante,


s: that is man, goes seeking in his journey through the spiritual


s: world. This liberty is to be attained through the right use of


s: reason, illuminated by Divine Grace; it consists in the perfect


s: accord of the will of man with the will of God.


s: With this view of the nature and end of man Dante's conception of


s: was providentially ordered. The fall of man had made him a just


s: object of the vengeance of God; but the elect were to be


s: redeemed, and for their redemption the history of the world from


s: the beginning was directed. Not only in his dealings with the


s: the reconciliation of man, to be finally accomplished in his


s: sacrifice of Himself for them. The Roman Empire was foreordained


s: and established for this end. It was to prepare the way for the


s: establishment of the Roman Church. It was the appointed


s: instrument for the political governument of men. Empire and


s: Church were alike divine institutions for the guidance of man on


s: The aim of Dante in the Divine Comedy was to set forth these


s: truths in such wise as to affect the imaginations and touch the


s: hearts of men, so that they should turn to righteousness. His


s: conviction of these truths was no mere matter of belief; it had


s: the ardor and certainty of faith. They had appeared to him in all


s: work as poet, as poet with a divine commission, to make this


s: revelation known. His work was a work of faith; it was sacred; to


s: To this work, as I have said, the definiteness and the limits of


s: the generally accepted theory of the Universe gave the required


s: frame. The very narrowness of this scheme made Dante's design


s: practicable. He had had the experience of a man on earth. He had


s: been lured by false objects of desire from the pursuit of the


s: true good. But Divine Grace, in the form of Beatrice, who had of


s: old on earth led him aright, now intervened and sent to his aid


s: Virgil, who, as the type of Human Reason, should bring him safe


s: through Hell, showing to him the eternal consequences of sin, and


s: till on its summit, in the Earthly Paradise, Beatrice should


s: appear once more to him. Thence she, as the type of that


s: knowledge through which comes the love of God, should lead him,


s: through the Heavens up to the Empyrean, to the consummation of


s: The Essay by Mr. Lowell, to which I have already referred (Dante,


s: study of the poem. It should be read and re-read.


s: Dante, an essay by the late Dean Church, is the work of a learned


s: The Notes and Illustrations that accompany Mr. Longfellow's


s: translation of the Divine Comedy form an admirable body of


s: The Rev. Dr. Edward Moore's little volume, on The Time-References


s: making the progress of Dante's journey clear, and in showing


s: Dante's scrupulous consistency of statement. Dr. Moore's more


s: recent work, Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Divina


s: These sources of information are enough for the mere English


s: reader. But one who desires to make himself a thorough master of


s: the poem must turn to foreign sources of instruction: to Carl


s: Witte's invaluable Dante-Forschungen (2 vols. Halle, 1869); to


s: the comment, especially that on the Paradiso, which accompanies


s: the German translation of the Divine Comedy by Philalethes. the


s: late King John of Saxony; to Bartoli's life of Dante in his


s: Storia della Letteratura Italiana (Firenze, 1878 and subsequent


s: years), and to Scartazzini's Prolegomeni della Divina Commedia


s: (Leipzig, 1890). The fourteenth century Comments, especially


s: those of Boccaccio, of Buti, and of Benvenuto da Imola, are


s: indispensable to one who would understand the poem as it was


s: understood by Dante's immediate contemporaries and successors. It


s: fellow-citizen, Giovanni Villani, that our knowledge concerning


s: many of the personages mentioned in the Poem is derived.


s: In respect to the theology and general doctrine of the Poem, the


s: Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas is the main source from


s: Of editions of the Divina Commedia in Italian, either that of


s: Andreoli, or of Bianchi, or of Fraticelli, each in one volume,


s: may be recommended to the beginner. Scartazzini's edition in


s: three volumes is the best, in spite of some serious defects, for


s: CANTO I. Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill


s: which he begins to ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he


s: turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him into


s: Midway upon the road of our life I found myself within a dark


s: wood, for the right way had been missed. Ah! how hard a thing it


s: is to tell what this wild and rough and dense wood was, which in


s: thought renews the fear! So bitter is it that death is little


s: more. But in order to treat of the good that there I found, I


s: will tell of the other things that I have seen there. I cannot


s: well recount how I entered it, so full was I of slumber at that


s: point where I abandoned the true way. But after I had arrived at


s: the foot of a hill, where that valley ended which had pierced my


s: heart with fear, I looked on high, and saw its shoulders clothed


s: already with the rays of the planet that leadeth men aright


s: along every path. Then was the fear a little quieted which in the


s: piteously. And even as one who with spent breath, issued out of


s: the sea upon the shore, turns to the perilous water and gazes, so


s: The sun, a planet according to the Ptolemaic system.


s: After I had rested a little my weary body I took my way again


s: along the desert slope, so that the firm foot was always the


s: lower. And ho! almost at the beginning of the steep a


s: she-leopard, light and very nimble, which was covered with a


s: spotted coat. And she did not move from before my face, nay,


s: rather hindered so my road that to return I oftentimes had


s: The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the Sun was


s: mounting upward with those stars that were with him when Love


s: Divine first set in motion those beautiful things; so that the


s: hour of the time and the sweet season were occasion of good hope


s: to me concerning that wild beast with the dappled skin. But not


s: so that the sight which appeared to me of a lion did not give me


s: fear. He seemed to be coming against me, with head high and with


s: ravening hunger, so that it seemed that the air was affrighted at


s: meagreness, and already had made many folk to live forlorn,--she


s: caused me so much heaviness, with the fear that came from sight


s: of her, that I lost hope of the height And such as he is who


s: gaineth willingly, and the time arrives that makes him lose, who


s: in all his thoughts weeps and is sad,--such made me the beast


s: without repose that, coming on against me, little by little was


s: pushing me back thither where the Sun is silent.


s: According to old tradition the spring was the season of the


s: These three beasts correspond to the triple division of sins


s: into those of incontinence, of violence, and of fraud. See Canto


s: While I was falling back to the low place, before mine eyes


s: appeared one who through long silence seemed hoarse. When I saw


s: him in the great desert, "Have pity on me!" I cried to him,


s: "whatso thou art, or shade or real man." He answered me: "Not


s: man; man once I was, and my parents were Lombards, and Mantuans


s: by country both. I was born sub Julio, though late, and I lived


s: at Rome under the good Augustus, in the time of the false and


s: lying gods. Poet was I, and sang of that just son of Anchises who


s: returnest thou to so great annoy? Why dost thou not ascend the


s: delectable mountain which is the source and cause of every joy?"


s: "Art thou then that Virgil and that fount which poureth forth so


s: large a stream of speech?" replied I to him with bashful front:


s: "O honor and light of the other poem I may the long seal avail


s: me, and the great love, which have made me search thy volume!


s: Thou art my master and my author; thou alone art he from whom I


s: took the fair style that hath done me honor. Behold the beast


s: because of which I turned; help me against her, famous sage, for


s: she makes any veins and pulses tremble." "Thee it behoves to hold


s: wishest to escape from this savage place; for this beast, because


s: but so hinders him that she kills him! and she has a nature so


s: malign and evil that she never sates her greedy will, and after


s: food is hungrier than before. Many are the animals with which she


s: that will make her die of grief. He shall not feed on land or


s: goods, but wisdom and love and valor, and his birthplace shall be


s: till he shall have set her back in hell, there whence envy first


s: sent her forth. Wherefore I think and deem it for thy best that


s: thou follow me, and I will be thy guide, and will lead thee hence


s: shrieks, shalt see the ancient spirits woeful who each proclaim


s: the second death. And then thou shalt see those who are contented


s: Of whom the hound is the symbol, and to whom Dante looked for


s: the deliverance of Italy from the discorda and misrule that made


s: her wretched, is still matter of doubt, after centuries of


s: Then he moved on, and I behind him kept.


s: CANTO II. Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at


s: the outset.--Virgil cheers him by telling him that he has been


s: sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit from Heaven.--Dante casts off


s: The day was going, and the dusky air was taking the living things


s: to sustain the war alike of the road, and of the woe which the


s: mind that erreth not shall retrace. O Muses, O lofty genius, now


s: assist me! O mind that didst inscribe that which I saw, here


s: shall thy nobility appear! I began:--"Poet, that guidest me,


s: consider my virtue, if it is sufficient, ere to the deep pass


s: thou trustest me. Thou sayest that the parent of Silvius while


s: still corruptible went to the immortal world and was there in the


s: the Who and the What, it seemeth not unmeet to the man of


s: understanding; for in the empyreal heaven he had been chosen for


s: father of revered Rome and of her empire; both which (to say


s: truth indeed) were ordained for the holy place where the


s: successor of the greater Peter hath his seat. Through this going,


s: cause of his victory and of the papal mantle. Afterward the


s: Chosen Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith


s: which is the beginning of the way of salvation. But I, why go I


s: thither? or who concedes it? I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul; me


s: worthy of this, neither I nor others think; wherefore if I give


s: myself up to go, I fear lest the going may be mad. Thou art wise,


s: And as is he who unwills what he willed, and because of new


s: thoughts changes his design, so that he quite withdraws from


s: beginning, such I became on that dark hillside: wherefore in my


s: thought I abandoned the enterprise which had been so hasty in the


s: "If I have rightly understood thy speech," replied that shade of


s: the magnanimous one, "thy soul is hurt by cowardice, which


s: oftentimes encumbereth a man so that it turns him back from


s: honorable enterprise, as false seeing does a beast when it is


s: startled. In order that thou loose thee from this fear I will


s: tell thee wherefore I have come, and what I heard at the first


s: moment that I grieved for thee. I was among those who are


s: suspended, and a Lady called me, so blessed and beautiful that


s: I besought her to command. Her eyes were more lucent than the


s: star, and she began to speak to me sweet and low, with angelic


s: voice, in her own tongue: 'O courteous Mantuan soul, of whom the


s: fame yet lasteth in the world, and shall last so long as the


s: world endureth! a friend of mine and not of fortune upon the


s: desert hillside is so hindered on his road that he has turned for


s: heaven, lest already he be so astray that I may have risen late


s: to his succor. Now do thou move, and with thy speech ornate, and


s: with whatever is needful for his deliverance, assist him so that


s: I may be consoled for him. I am Beatrice who make thee go. I come


s: often unto Him.' Then she was silent, and thereon I began: 'O


s: Lady of Virtue, thou alone through whom the human race surpasseth


s: already done, were slow to me. Thou hast no need further to


s: open unto me thy will; but tell me the cause why thou guardest


s: not thyself from descending down here into this centre, from the


s: ample place whither thou burnest to return.' 'Since thou wishest


s: to know so inwardly, I will tell thee briefly,' she replied to


s: me, 'wherefore I fear not to come here within. One ought to fear


s: those things only that have power of doing harm, the others not,


s: for they are not dreadful. I am made by God, thanks be to Him,


s: such that your misery toucheth me not, nor doth the flame of this


s: for this hindrance whereto I send thee, so that stern judgment


s: there above she breaketh. She summoned Lucia in her request, and


s: said, "Thy faithful one now hath need of thee, and unto thee I


s: commend him." Lucia, the foe of every cruel one, rose and came to


s: "Beatrice, true praise of God, why dost thou not succor him who


s: so loved thee that for thee he came forth from the vulgar throng?


s: death that combats him beside the stream whereof the sea hath no


s: vaunt?" In the world never were persons swift to seek their good,


s: had said this to me, weeping she turned her lucent eyes, whereby


s: she made me more speedy in coming. And I came to thee as she


s: willed. Thee have I delivered from that wild beast that took from


s: blessed Ladies care for thee in the court of Heaven, and my


s: The heaven of the moon, nearest to the earth.


s: As flowerets, bent and closed by the chill of night, after the


s: sun shines on them straighten themselves all open on their stem,


s: so I became with my weak virtue, and such good daring hastened to


s: she who succored me! and thou courteous who didst speedily obey


s: the true words that she addressed to thee! Thou by thy words hast


s: unto my first intent. Go on now, for one sole will is in us both:


s: CANTO III. The gate of Hell.--Virgil lends Dante in.--The


s: punishment of the neither good nor bad.--Aeheron, and the sinners


s: "Through me is the way into the woeful city; through me is the


s: way into eternal woe; through me is the way among the lost


s: people. Justice moved my lofty maker: the divine Power, the


s: supreme Wisdom and the primal Love made me. Before me were no


s: things created, unless eternal, and I eternal last. Leave every


s: These words of color obscure I saw written at the top of a gate;


s: whereat I, "Master, their meaning is dire to me."


s: And he to me, like one who knew, "Here it behoves to leave every


s: fear; it behoves that all cowardice should here be dead. We have


s: come to the place where I have told thee that thou shalt see the


s: woeful people, who have lost the good of the understanding."


s: And when he had put his hand on mine, with a glad countenance,


s: wherefrom I took courage, he brought me within the secret things.


s: hoarse, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult which


s: And I, who had my head girt with horror, said, "Master, what is


s: it that I hear? and what folk are they who seem in woe so


s: And he to me, "This miserable measure the wretched souls maintain


s: nor were faithful to God, but were for themselves. The heavens


s: chased them out in order to be not less beautiful, nor doth the


s: depth of Hell receive them, because the damned would have some


s: And I, "Master, what is so grievous to them, that makes them


s: He answered, "I will tell thee very briefly. These have no hope


s: of death; and their blind life is so debased, that they are


s: envious of every other lot. Fame of them the world permitteth not


s: And I, who was gazing, saw a banner, that whirling ran so swiftly


s: long a train of folk, that I could never have believed death had


s: undone so many. After I had distinguished some among them, I saw


s: and knew the shade of him who made, through cowardice, the great


s: refusal.  At once I understood and was certain, that this was


s: the sect of the caitiffs displeasing unto God, and unto his


s: enemies. These wretches, who never were alive, were naked, and


s: much stung by gad-flies and by wasps that were there. These


s: streaked their faces with blood, which, mingled with tears, was


s: harvested at their feet by loathsome worms.


s: Who is intended by these words is uncertain.


s: And when I gave myself to looking onward, I saw people on the


s: bank of a great river; wherefore I said, "Master, now grant to me


s: steps on the sad marge of Acheron." Then with eyes bashful and


s: cast down, fearing lest my speech had been irksome to him, far as


s: And lo! coming toward us in a boat, an old man, white with


s: ancient hair, crying, "Woe to you, wicked souls! hope not ever to


s: darkness, to heat and frost. And thou who art there, living soul,


s: depart, he said, "By another way, by other ports thou shalt come


s: to the shore, not here, for passage; it behoves that a lighter


s: The boat that bears the souls to Purgatory. Charon recognizes


s: And my Leader to him, "Charon, vex not thyself, it is thus willed


s: not." Then the fleecy cheeks were quiet of the pilot of the livid


s: But those souls, who were weary and naked, changed color, and


s: gnashed their teeth soon as they heard his cruel words. They


s: blasphemed God and their parents, the human race, the place, the


s: time and the seed of their sowing and of their birth. Then,


s: bitterly weeping, they drew back all of them together to the evil


s: demon, with eyes of glowing coal, beckoning them, collects them


s: all; he beats with his oar whoever lingers.


s: As in autumn the leaves fall off one after the other, till the


s: bough sees all its spoils upon the earth, in like wise the evil


s: seed of Adam throw themselves from that shore one by one at


s: signals, as the bird at his call. Thus they go over the dusky


s: wave, and before they have landed on the farther side, already on


s: "My son," said the courteous Master, "those who die in the wrath


s: of God, all meet together here from every land. And they are


s: eager to pass over the stream, for the divine justice spurs them,


s: passes; and therefore if Charon snarleth at thee, thou now mayest


s: trembled so mightily, that the memory of the terror even now


s: bathes me with sweat. The tearful land gave forth a wind that


s: flashed a vermilion light which vanquished every sense of mine,


s: and I fell as a man whom slumber seizes.


s: CANTO IV. The further side of Acheron.--Virgil leads Dante into


s: Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, containing the spirits of those


s: who lived virtuously but without Christianity.--Greeting of


s: Virgil by his fellow poets.--They enter a castle, where are the


s: shades of ancient worthies.--Virgil and Dante depart.


s: A heavy thunder broke the deep sleep in my head, so that I


s: started up like a person who by force is wakened. And risen


s: erect, I moved my rested eye round about, and looked fixedly to


s: distinguish the place where I was. True it is, that I found


s: myself on the verge of the valley of the woeful abyss that


s: gathers in thunder of infinite wailings. Dark, profound it was,


s: and cloudy, so that though I fixed my sight on the bottom I did


s: "Now we descend down here into the blind world," began the Poet


s: all deadly pale, "I will be first, and thou shalt be second."


s: And I, who had observed his color, said, "How shall I come, if


s: thou fearest, who art wont to be a comfort to my doubting?" And


s: he to me, "The anguish of the folk who are down here depicts upon


s: So he set forth, and so he made me enter within the first circle


s: that girds the abyss. Here, so far as could be heard, there was


s: no plaint but that of sighs which made the eternal air to


s: tremble: this came of the woe without torments felt by the


s: crowds, which were many and great, of infants and of women and of


s: The good Master to me, "Thou dost not ask what spirits are these


s: that thou seest. Now I would have thee know, before thou goest


s: farther, that they sinned not; and if they have merits it


s: sufficeth not, because they had not baptism, which is part of the


s: they did not duly worship God: and of such as these am I myself.


s: Through such defects, and not through other guilt, are we lost,


s: and only so far harmed that without hope we live in desire."


s: Great woe seized me at my heart when I heard him, because I knew


s: that people of much worth were suspended in that limbo. "Tell me,


s: that faith which vanquishes every error, "did ever any one who


s: afterwards was blessed go out from here, either by his own or by


s: another's merit?" And he, who understood my covert speech,


s: answered, "I was new in this state when I saw a Mighty One come


s: hither crowned with sign of victory. He drew out hence the shade


s: of the first parent, of Abel his son, and that of Noah, of Moses


s: the law-giver and obedient, Abraham the patriarch, and David the


s: King, Israel with his father, and with his offspring, and with


s: Rachel, for whom he did so much, and others many; and He made


s: them blessed: and I would have thee know that before these, human


s: Wishing especially to be assured in regard to the descent of


s: We ceased not going on because he spoke, but all the while were


s: passing through the wood, the wood I mean of crowded spirits. Nor


s: that conquered a hemisphere of darkness. We were still a little


s: distant from it, yet not so far that I could not partially


s: discern that honorable folk possessed that place. "O thou that


s: honorest both science and art, these, who are they, that have


s: such honor that from the condition of the others it sets them


s: apart?" And he to me, "The honorable fame of them which resounds


s: above in thy life wins grace in heaven that so advances them." At


s: quiet, I saw four great shades coming to us: they had a semblance


s: with that sword in hand who cometh before the three, even as


s: lord. He is Homer, the sovereign poet; the next who comes is


s: Horace, the satirist; Ovid is the third, and the last is Lucan.


s: Since each shares with me the name that the single voice sounded,


s: Thus I saw assembled the fair school of that Lord of the loftiest


s: discoursed somewhat together, they turned to me with sign of


s: salutation; and my Master smiled thereat. And far more of honor


s: yet they did me, for they made me of their band, so that I was


s: the sixth amid so much wit. Thus we went on as far as the light,


s: speaking things concerning which silence is becoming, even as was


s: We came to the foot of a noble castle, seven times circled by


s: high walls, defended round about by a fair streamlet. This we


s: passed as if hard ground; through seven gates I entered with


s: these sages; we came to a meadow of fresh verdure. People were


s: there with eyes slow and grave, of great authority in their


s: looks; they spake seldom, and with soft voices. Thus we drew


s: apart, on one side, into a place open, luminous, and high, so


s: that they all could be seen. There opposite upon the green enamel


s: I saw Electra with many companions, among whom I knew both Hector


s: Camilla and Penthesilea on the other side, and I saw the King


s: Latinus, who was seated with Lavinia his daughter. I saw that


s: Brutus who drove out Tarquin; Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and


s: Cornelia; and alone, apart, I saw the Saladin. When I raised my


s: brow a little more, I saw the Master of those who know, seated


s: amid the philosophic family; all regard him, all do him honor.


s: Here I saw both Socrates and Plato, who before the others stand


s: nearest to him; Democritus, who ascribes the world to chance;


s: Zeno; and I saw the good collector of the qualities, Dioscorides,


s: Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna, Galen,


s: and Averrhoes, who made the great comment. I cannot report of all


s: The company of six is reduced to two. By another way the wise


s: guide leads me, out from the quiet, into the air that trembles,


s: and I come into a region where is nothing that can give light.


s: CANTO V. The Second Circle, that of Carnal Sinners.--Minos.--


s: Shades renowned of old.--Francesca da Rimini.


s: Thus I descended from the first circle down into the second,


s: which girdles less space, and so much more woe that it goads to


s: wailing. There abides Minos horribly, and snarls; he examines the


s: entwines himself. I mean, that, when the miscreant spirit comes


s: there before him, it confesses itself wholly, and that discerner


s: of sins sees what place of Hell is for it; he girdles himself


s: with his tail so many times as the degrees he wills it should be


s: sent down. Always before him stand many of them. They go, in


s: turn, each to the judgment; they speak, and hear, and then are


s: "O thou that comest to the woeful inn," said Minos to me, when he


s: enterest, and to whom thou trustest thyself; let not the


s: amplitude of the entrance deceive thee." And my Leader to


s: him, "Why then dost thou cry out? Hinder not his fated going;


s: thus is it willed there where is power to do that which is


s: Now the woeful notes begin to make themselves heard; now am I


s: come where much lamentation smites me. I had come into a place


s: mute of all light, that bellows as the sea does in a tempest, if


s: it be combated by opposing winds. The infernal hurricane that


s: never rests carries along the spirits in its rapine; whirling and


s: blast, here are shrieks, and bewailing, and lamenting; here they


s: blaspheme the power divine. I understood that to such torment are


s: as their wings bear along the starlings in the cold season in a


s: troop large and full, so that blast the evil spirits; hither,


s: thither, down, up it carries them; no hope ever comforts them,


s: And as the cranes go singing their lays, making in air a long


s: line of themselves, so saw I come, uttering wails, shades borne


s: along by the aforesaid strife. Wherefore I said, "Master, who are


s: abandoned that lust she made licit in her law, to take away the


s: blame she had incurred. She is Semiramis, of whom it is read that


s: which the Soldan rules. That other is she who, for love, killed


s: herself, and broke faith to the ashes of Sichaeus. Next is


s: Cleopatra, the luxurious. See Helen, for whom so long a time of


s: ill revolved; and see the great Achilles, who at the end fought


s: with love. See Paris, Tristan,--" and more than a thousand shades


s: After I had heard my Teacher name the dames of eld and the


s: cavaliers, pity overcame me, and I was well nigh bewildered. I


s: began, "Poet, willingly would I speak with those two that go


s: together, and seem to be so light upon the wind." And he to me,


s: "Thou shalt see when they shall be nearer to us, and do thou then


s: Soon as the wind sways them toward us I lifted my voice, "O weary


s: As doves, called by desire, with wings open and steady, fly


s: through the air to their sweet nest, borne by their will, these


s: issued from the troop where Dido is, coming to us through the


s: malign air, so strong was the compassionate cry.


s: "O living creature, gracious and benign, that goest through the


s: lurid air visiting us who stained the world blood-red,--if the


s: King of the universe were a friend we would pray Him for thy


s: peace, since thou hast pity on our perverse ill. Of what it


s: pleaseth thee to hear, and what to speak, we will hear and we


s: will speak to you, while the wind, as now, is hushed for us. The


s: city where I was born sits upon the sea-shore, where the Po, with


s: from me, and the mode still hurts me. Love, which absolves no


s: loved one from loving, seized me for the pleasing of him so


s: strongly that, as thou seest, it does not even now abandon me.


s: Love brought us to one death. Caina awaits him who quenched our


s: life." These words were borne to us from them.


s: Soon as I had heard those injured souls I bowed my face, and held


s: When I replied, I began, "Alas! how many sweet thoughts, how


s: great desire, led these unto the woeful pass." Then I turned me


s: again to them, and I spoke, and began, "Francesca, thy torments


s: make me sad and piteous to weeping. But tell me, at the time of


s: the sweet sighs by what and how did love concede to you to know


s: the dubious desires?" And she to me, "There is no greater woe


s: than in misery to remember the happy time, and that thy Teacher


s: knows. But if to know the first root of our love thou hast so


s: great a longing, I will do like one who weeps and tells.


s: "We were reading one day, for delight, of Lancelot, how love


s: constrained him. We were alone and without any suspicion. Many


s: times that reading made us lift our eyes, and took the color from


s: one, who never from me shall be divided, kissed my mouth all


s: trembling. Galahaut was the book, and he who wrote it. That day


s: In the Romance, it was Galahaut that prevailed on Guinevere


s: While one spirit said this the other was weeping so that through


s: pity I swooned, as if I had been dying, and fell as a dead body


s: CANTO VI. The Third Circle, that of the Gluttonous.--Cerberus.--


s: When the mind returned, which closed itself before the pity of


s: these two kinsfolk, that had all confounded me with sadness, new


s: torments and new tormented souls I see around me wherever I move,


s: I am in the third circle, that of the rain eternal, accursed,


s: cold, and heavy. Its rule and quality are never new. Coarse hail,


s: earth that receives them stinks. Cerberus, a beast cruel and


s: monstrous, with three throats barks doglike above the people that


s: spirits, flays them, and rends them. The rain makes them howl


s: like dogs; of one of their sides they make a screen for the


s: other; the profane wretches often turn themselves.


s: When Cerberus, the great worm, observed us he opened his mouths,


s: and showed his fangs to us; not a limb had he that he kept quiet.


s: full fists threw it into the ravenous gullets. As the dog that


s: barking craves, and becomes quiet when he bites his food, and is


s: intent and fights only to devour it, such became those filthy


s: faces of the demon Cerberus, who so thunders at the souls that


s: We were passing over the shades whom the heavy rain subdues, and


s: were setting our feet upon their vain show that seems a body.


s: They all of them lay upon the ground, except one who raised


s: himself to sit, quickly as he saw us passing before him. "O thou


s: who art led through this Hell," he said to me, "recognize me, if


s: thou canst; thou wast made before I was unmade." And I to him,


s: "The anguish which thou hast perchance withdraws thee from my


s: memory, so that it seems not that I ever saw thee. But tell me


s: who thou art, that in a place so woeful art set, and with such a


s: punishment, that if any other is greater none is so displeasing."


s: the sack runs over, held me in it, in the serene life. You


s: citizens called me Ciacco;  for the damnable sin of gluttony,


s: as thou seest, I am broken by the rain. And I, wretched soul, am


s: not alone, for all these endure like punishment, for like sin,"


s: and more he said not. I answered him, "Ciacco, thy trouble so


s: weighs upon me, that it invites me to weeping; but tell me, if


s: thou canst, to what will come the citizens of the divided city;


s: if any one in it is just; and tell me the reason why such great


s: Ciacco, in popular speech, signifies a hog.


s: And he to me, "After long contention they will come to blood, and


s: Thereafter within three suns it behoves this to fall, and the


s: other to surmount through the force of one who even now is


s: tacking. It will hold high its front long time, keeping the other


s: Avarice are the three sparks that have inflamed their hearts."


s: Here he set end unto the lamentable sound.


s: This prophecy relates to the dissensions and violence of the


s: parties of the Whites and the Blacks by which Florence was rent.


s: The "savage party" was that of the Whites, who were mainly


s: Ghibellines. The "one who even now is tacking" was the Pope,


s: Boniface VIII., who was playing fast and loose with both. Who the


s: And I to him, "Still I would that thou teach me, and that of more


s: were so worthy, Jacopo Rusticucci, Arrigo, and the Mosca, and the


s: and cause that I may know them, for great desire constrains me to


s: And he, "They are among the blacker souls: a different sin weighs


s: see them. But when thou shalt be in the sweet world I pray thee


s: that thou bring me to the memory of others. More I say not to


s: thee, and more I answer thee not." His straight eyes he twisted


s: then awry, looked at me a little, and then bent his head, and


s: fell with it level with the other blind.


s: And the Leader said to me, "He wakes no more this side the sound


s: of the angelic trump. When the hostile Sovereign shall come, each


s: and his shape, will hear that which through eternity reechoes."


s: Thus we passed along with slow steps through the foul mixture of


s: the shades and of the rain, touching a little on the future life.


s: after the great sentence, or will they become less, or will they


s: be just as burning?" And he to me, "Return to thy science, which


s: declares that the more perfect a thing is the more it feels the


s: good, and so the pain. Though this accursed people never can


s: attain to true perfection, it expects thereafter to be more than


s: We took a circling course along that road, speaking far more than


s: Pluto appears here not as Hades, the god of the lower world,


s: but in his character as the giver of wealth.


s: CANTO VII. The Fourth Circle, that of the Avaricious and the


s: Prodigal.--Pluto.--Fortune.--The Styx.--The Fifth Circle, that of


s: "Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe,"--began Pluto with his clucking


s: voice. And that gentle Sage, who knew everything, said to comfort


s: not take from thee the descent of this rock." Then he turned to


s: that swollen lip and said, "Be silent, accursed wolf! inwardly


s: consume thyself with thine own rage: not without cause is this


s: going to the abyss; it is willed on high, there where Michael did


s: fall in a heap when the mast snaps, so fell to earth the cruel


s: Adultery, in the sense of infidelity to God.


s: Thus we descended into the fourth hollow, taking more of the


s: woeful bank that gathers in the evil of the whole universe. Ah,


s: Justice of God! Who heapeth up so many new travails and penalties


s: yonder upon Charybdis, which is broken on that which it


s: encounters, so it behoves that here the people counterdance.


s: Here saw I people more than elsewhere many, and from one side and


s: They struck against each other, and then just there each turned,


s: rolling backward, crying, "Why keepest thou?" and "Why flingest


s: thou away?" Thus they turned through the dark circle on either


s: hand to the opposite point, still crying out their opprobrious


s: verse; then each, when he had come through his half circle,


s: And I, who had my heart well-nigh pierced through, said, "My


s: Master, now declare to me what folk is this, and if all these


s: And he to me, "All of these were so asquint in mind in the first


s: life that they made no spending there with measure. Clearly


s: enough their voices bay it out, when they come to the two points


s: of the circle where the contrary sin divides them. These were


s: clerks who have no hairy covering on their head, and Popes and


s: Cardinals, in whom avarice practices its excess."


s: And I, "Master, among such as these I ought surely to recognize


s: some who were polluted with these evils."


s: And he to me, "Vain thought thou harborest; the undiscerning life


s: Forever will they come to the two buttings; these will rise from


s: the sepulchre with closed fist, and these with shorn hair.


s: Ill-giving and ill-keeping have taken from them the fair world,


s: and set them to this scuffle; such as it is, I adorn not words


s: for it. Now canst thou, son, see the brief jest of the goods that


s: these weary souls could not make a single one repose."


s: "Master," said I to him, "now tell me further; this Fortune, on


s: which thou touchest for me, what is it, that hath the goods of


s: And he to me, "O creatures foolish, how great is that ignorance


s: that harms you! I would have thee now take in my judgment of her.


s: their guides, so that every part on every part doth shine,


s: equally distributing the light. In like wise for the splendors of


s: Wherefore one race rules, and the other languishes, pursuant to


s: her judgment, which is occult as the snake in the grass. Your


s: wisdom hath no withstanding of her: she provides, judges and


s: maintains her realm, as theirs the other gods. Her permutations


s: have no truce; necessity compels her to be swift, so often cometh


s: even by those who ought to give her praise, giving her blame


s: amiss and ill report. But she is blessed and hears this not. With


s: every star sinks that was rising when I set out, and too long


s: We crossed the circle to the other bank, above a fount that boils


s: was far darker than perse; and we, in company with the dusky


s: waves, entered down through a strange way. A marsh it makes, that


s: to the foot of the malign gray slopes. And I, who stood intent to


s: hurt. They were smiting each other, not only with hands, but with


s: The good Master said, "Son, now thou seest the souls of those


s: whom anger overcame; and likewise I would have thee believe for


s: certain that beneath the water are folk who sigh, and make this


s: water bubble at the surface, as thine eye tells thee wherever it


s: turns. Fixed in the slime, they say, 'Sullen were we in the sweet


s: sluggish fume; now we are sullen in the black mire.' This hymn


s: they gurgle in their throats, for they cannot speak with entire


s: The sin here punished is that known to the Middle Ages as


s: acedia, or accidie,--slackness in good works, and spiritual gloom


s: ire maken bitternesse in heart, which bitternesse is mother of


s: Thus we circled a great arc of the foul fen, between the dry bank


s: CANTO VIII. The Fifth Circle.--Phlegyas and his boat.--Passage of


s: I say, continuing, that, long before we were at the foot of the


s: high tower, our eyes went upward to its top because of two


s: flamelets that we saw set there, and another giving sigual back


s: from so far that hardly could the eye reach it. And I turned me


s: to the Sea of all wisdom; I said, "This one, what says it? and


s: what answers that other fire? and who are they that make it?" And


s: which is expected, if the fume of the marsh hide it not from


s: Bowstring never sped arrow from itself that ran so swift a course


s: single ferryman, who was crying out, "Art thou then come, fell


s: "Phlegyas, Phlegyas, this time thou criest out in vain," said my


s: Lord; "longer thou shalt not have us than only while crossing the


s: practiced on him, and then chafes at it, such became Phlegyas in


s: My Leader descended into the bark and then he made me enter after


s: and I were in the boat, the antique prow goes its way, cutting


s: more of the water than it is wont with others.


s: While we were running through the dead channel, before me showed


s: himself one full of mud, and said, "Who art thou that comest


s: before the hour?" And I to him, "If I come I stay not; but thou,


s: who art thou that art become so foul?" He answered, "Thou seest


s: that I am one who weeps." And I to him, "With weeping and with


s: wailing, accursed spirit, do thou remain, for I know thee


s: although thou art all filthy." Then he stretched to the boat both


s: "Begone there, with the other dogs!" Then with his arms he


s: clasped my neck, kissed my face, and said, "Disdainful soul,


s: blessed be she who bore thee! This one was an arrogant person in


s: the world; no goodness is there that adorns his memory; therefore


s: great kings who shall stand here like swine in mire, leaving of


s: themselves horrible dispraises." And I, "Master, I should much


s: like to see him ducked in this broth before we depart from the


s: lake." And he to me, "Ere the shore allows thee to see it thou


s: shalt be satisfied; it will be fitting that thou enjoy such a


s: desire." After this a little I saw such rending of him by the


s: muddy folk that I still praise God therefor, and thank Him for


s: it. All cried, "At Filippo Argenti!" and the raging florentine


s: spirit turned upon himself with his teeth. Here we left him; so


s: But on my ears there smote a wailing, whereat forward intent I


s: open wide my eye. And the good Master said, "Now, son, the city


s: draws near that is named Dis, with its heavy citizens, with its


s: great throng." And I, "Master, already in the valley therewithin


s: I clearly discern its mosques vermilion, as if issuing from


s: fire." And he said to me, "The eternal fire that blazes within


s: them displays them red as thou seest in this nether Hell."


s: We at last arrived within the deep ditches that encompass that


s: disconsolate city. The walls seemed to me to be of iron. Not


s: without first making a great circuit did we come to a place where


s: Upon the gates I saw more than a thousand of those rained down


s: from heaven who angrily were saying, "Who is this, that without


s: death goes through the realm of the dead folk?" And my wise


s: Master made a sign of wishing to speak secretly with them. Then


s: they shut in a little their great scorn, and said, "Come thou


s: alone, and let him be gone who so boldly entered on this realm.


s: Alone let him return on the mad path: let him try if he can; for


s: thou, who hast escorted him through so dark a region, shalt


s: Think, Reader, if I was discomforted at the sound of the accursed


s: "O my dear Leader, who more than seven times hast renewed


s: assurance in me, and drawn me from deep peril that stood


s: confronting me, leave me not," said I, "thus undone; and, if the


s: going farther onward be denied us, let us together retrace our


s: footprints quickly." And that Lord who had led me thither said to


s: Such an one it is given to us. But here await me, and comfort thy


s: So the sweet Father goes away, and here abandons me, and I remain


s: hear what he set forth to them, but he had not staid there long


s: with them, when each ran vying back within. These our adversaries


s: and returned to me with slow steps. He held his eyes upon the


s: ground, and his brow was shorn of all hardihood, and he said in


s: sighs, "Who hath denied to me the houses of woe?" And he said to


s: me, "Thou, because I am wroth, be not dismayed, for I shall win


s: the strife, whoever circle round within for the defence. This


s: their insolence is not new, for of old they used it at a less


s: secret gate, which still is found without a bolt. Above it thou


s: didst see the dead inscription; and already on this side of it


s: descends the steep, passing without escort through the circles,


s: One such that by him the city shall be opened to us."


s: CANTO IX. The City of Dis.--Erichtho.--The Three Furies.--The


s: Heavenly Messenger.--The Sixth Circle, that of the Heresiarchs.


s: That color which cowardice painted outwardly on me when I saw my


s: Guide turn back, repressed more speedily his own new color. He


s: stopped attentive, like a man that listens, for the eye could not


s: "Yet it must be for us to win the fight," began he, "unless--Such


s: The messenger from Heaven, referred to in the last verses of


s: I saw well how he covered up the beginning with the rest that


s: came after, which were words different from the first. But


s: nevertheless his speech gave me fear, because I drew his broken


s: phrase perchance to a worse meaning than it held.


s: "Into this depth of the dismal shell does any one ever descend


s: from the first grade who has for penalty only hope cut off?"


s: This question I put, and he answered me, "Seldom it happens that


s: any one of us maketh the journey on which I am going. It is true


s: that another time I was conjured down here by that cruel Erichtho


s: had my flesh been bare of me, when she made me enter within that


s: wall in order to drag out for her a spirit from the circle of


s: Judas. That is the lowest place, and the darkest, and the


s: farthest from the Heaven that encircles all. Well do I know the


s: road: therefore assure thyself. This marsh which breathes out the


s: Dante asks for assurance that Virgil, whose station is in


s: Limbo, "the first grade," knows the way.


s: And more he said, but I hold it not in mind because my eye had


s: wholly attracted me toward the high tower with the ruddy summit,


s: where in an instant were uprisen suddenly three infernal furies,


s: stained with blood, who had the limbs of women and their action,


s: and were girt with greenest hydras. Little serpents and cerastes


s: they had for hair, wherewith their savage brows were bound.


s: And he, who well knew the handmaids of the queen of the eternal


s: lamentation, said to me, "Behold the fell Erinnyes; this is


s: Megaera on the left side, she who weeps on the right is Alecto,


s: Tisiphone is in the middle," and therewith he was silent.


s: With her nails each was tearing her breast, they beat themselves


s: with their hands, and cried out so loud that I pressed close to


s: the Poet through dread. "Let Medusa come, so we will make him of


s: stone," they all said, looking down. "Ill was it we avenged not


s: "Turn thy back, and keep thy sight closed, for if the Gorgon show


s: O ye who have sound understanding, regard the doctrine that is


s: hidden under the veil of the strange verses.


s: And already was coming across the turbid waves a tumult of a


s: sound full of terror at which both the shores trembled. Not


s: otherwise it was than of a wind, impetuous through the opposing


s: heats, that strikes the forest, and without any stay shatters the


s: dust, it goes superb, and makes the wild beasts and the shepherds


s: My eyes he loosed, and said, "Now direct the nerve of sight


s: across the ancient scum, there yonder where that fume is most


s: As frogs before the hostile snake all scatter through the water,


s: till each huddles on the ground, I saw more than a thousand


s: destroyed souls flying thus before one, who at the ford was


s: passing over the Styx with dry feet. From his face he removed


s: that thick air, waving his left hand oft before him, and only


s: with that trouble seemed he weary. Well I perceived that he was


s: sent from Heaven, and I turned me to the Master, and he made sign


s: disdain he seemed to me! He reached the gate and with a little


s: rod he opened it, for there was no withstanding.


s: "O outcasts from Heaven, folk despised," began he upon the


s: horrible threshold, "wherefore is this overweening harbored in


s: you? Why do ye kick against that will from which its end can


s: never be cut short, and which many a time hath increased your


s: grief? What avails it to butt against the fates? Your Cerberus,


s: if ye remember well, still bears his chin and his throat peeled


s: for that." Then he turned back upon the filthy road and said no


s: word to us, but wore the semblance of a man whom other care


s: constrains and stings, than that of him who is before him.


s: And we moved our feet toward the city, confident after his holy


s: words. Within we entered without any strife, and I, who had


s: desire to observe the condition which such a stronghold locks in,


s: hand a great plain full of woe and of cruel torment.


s: As at Arles, where the Rhone stagnates, as at Pola, near the


s: Quarnaro that shuts in Italy and bathes its borders, sepulchres


s: make all the place uneven; so did they here on every side, saving


s: were scattered, by which they were so intensely kindled that no


s: art requires iron more so. All their lids were lifted; and such


s: dire laments were issuing forth from them as truly seemed of


s: And I, "Master, who are these folk that, buried within those


s: coffers, make themselves heard with their woeful sighs?" And he


s: to me, "Here are the heresiarchs with their followers of every


s: sect, and the tombs are much more laden than thou thinkest. Like


s: with like is buried here, and the monuments are more and less


s: And when he to the right hand had turned, we passed between the


s: CANTO X. The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.--Farinata degli


s: Now along a narrow path between the wall of the city and the


s: torments my Master goeth on, and I behind his shoulders.


s: "O Virtue supreme," I began, "that through the impious circles


s: turnest me, according to thy pleasure, speak to me and satisfy my


s: seen? All the lids are now lifted, and no one keepeth guard." And


s: shall here return with the bodies which they have left on earth.


s: Upon this side Epicurus with all his followers, who make the soul


s: the demand that thou makest of me, thou shalt soon be satisfied


s: here within; and also as to the desire concerning which thou art


s: silent to me." And I, "Good Leader, I hold not my heart hidden


s: from thee except in order to speak little; and not only now to


s: "O Tuscan, who through the city of fire alive art going, speaking


s: speech makes manifest that thou art native of that noble


s: fatherland to which perchance I was too molestful." Suddenly this


s: a little nearer to my Leader. And he said to me, "Turn, what dost


s: I had already fixed my face on his, and he straightened himself


s: up with breast and front as though he had Hell in great scorn.


s: And the bold and ready hands of my Leader pushed me among the


s: sepulchres to him, saying, "Let thy words be choice."


s: When I was at the foot of his tomb, he looked at me a little, and


s: I, who was desirous to obey, concealed them not, but disclosed


s: them all to him; whereon he raised his brows a little up, then


s: said, "Fiercely were they adverse to me, and to my fathers, and


s: to my party, so that twice I scattered them."  "If they were


s: driven out, they returned from every side," replied I to him,


s: "both one and the other time, but yours have not learned well


s: Then there arose, to view uncovered down to the chin, a shade at


s: the side of this one; I think that it had risen on its knees.


s: Round about me it looked, as if it had desire to see if another


s: were with me, but when its expectancy was quite extinct, weeping


s: it said, "If through this blind dungeon thou goest through


s: loftiness of genius, my son, where is he? and why is he not with


s: thee?" And I to him, "Of myself I come not; he who waits yonder


s: leads me through here, whom perchance your Guido held in


s: Guido Cavalcanti was charged with the same sin of unbelief as


s: his father. Dante regards this as a sin specially contrary to


s: His words and the mode of the punishment had already read to me


s: the name of this one, wherefore my answer was so full.


s: Suddenly straightening up, he cried, "How didst thou say, 'he


s: held'? lives he not still? doth not the sweet light strike his


s: eyes?" When he took note of some delay that I made before


s: answering, he fell again supine, and forth appeared no more.


s: But that other magnanimous one, at whose instance I had stayed,


s: changed not aspect, nor moved his neck, nor bent his side. "And


s: if," he said, continuing his first words, "they have ill learned


s: that art, it torments me more than this bed. But the face of the


s: lady who ruleth here will not be rekindled fifty times ere thou


s: shalt know how much that art weighs. And, so mayest thou return


s: unto the sweet world, tell me wherefore is that people so


s: pitiless against my race in its every law?" Then I to him, "The


s: rout and the great carnage that colored the Arbia red cause such


s: orison to be made in our temple." After he had, sighing, shaken


s: his head, "In that I was not alone," he said, "nor surely without


s: where it was agreed by every one to lay Florence waste,--he


s: who defended her with open face." "Ah! so hereafter may your seed


s: foresee that which time is bringing with him, and as to the


s: present have another way." "We see," he said, "like those who


s: have feeble light, the things that are far from us, so much still


s: our intelligence is all vain, and, if some one report not to us,


s: we know nothing of your human state. Therefore thou canst


s: comprehend that our knowledge will be utterly dead from that


s: moment when the gate of the future shall he closed." Then, as


s: compunctious for my fault I said, "Now wilt thou therefore tell


s: that fallen one that his son is still conjoined with the living,


s: At Empoli, in 1260, after the defeat of the Florentine


s: Guido Cavalcanti died in August, 1300; his death, being near


s: at hand at the time of Dante's journey, was not known to his


s: And now my Master was calling me back, wherefore I prayed the


s: spirit more hastily that he would tell me who was with him. He


s: said to me, "Here with more than a thousand do I lie; here within


s: Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, a fierce Ghibelline, who was


s: reported as saying, "If there be a soul I have lost it for the


s: Thereon he hid himself; and I toward the ancient Poet turned my


s: steps, reflecting on that speech which seemed hostile to me. He


s: moved on, and then, thus going, he said to me, "Why art thou so


s: distraught?" And I satisfied his demand. "Let thy memory preserve


s: Sage, "and now attend to this," and he raised his finger. "When


s: thou shalt be in presence of the sweet radiance of her whose


s: beautiful eye sees everything, from her thou shalt learn the


s: journey of thy life." Then to the left he turned his step.


s: We left the wall, and went toward the middle by a path which


s: strikes into a valley that even up there its stench made


s: CANTO XI. The Sixth Circle: Heretics.--Tomb of Pope Anastasins.--


s: Upon the edge of a high bank formed by great rocks broken in a


s: circle, we came above a more cruel pen. And here, because of the


s: horrible excess of the stench that the deep abyss throws out, we


s: drew aside behind the lid of a great tomb, whereon I saw an


s: inscription which said, "Pope Anastasius I hold, he whom Photinus


s: "Our descent must needs be slow so that the sense may first


s: accustom itself a little to the dismal blast, and then will be no


s: compensation do thou find that the time pass not lost." And be,


s: "Behold, I am thinking of that. My son, within these rocks," he


s: began to say, "are three circlets from grade to grade like those


s: thou leavest. All are full of accursed spirits; but, in order


s: that hereafter sight only may suffice thee, hear how and


s: "Of every malice that wins hate in heaven injury is the end, and


s: every such end afflicts others either by force or by fraud. But


s: because fraud is the peculiar sin of man, it most displeaseth


s: God; and therefore the fraudulent are the lower, and more woe


s: "The first circle is wholly of the violent; but because


s: violence can be done to three persons, in three rounds it is


s: divided and constructed. Unto God, unto one's self, unto one's


s: neighbor may violence be done; I mean unto them and unto their


s: belongings, as thou shalt hear in plain discourse. By violence


s: death and grievous wounds are inflicted on one's neighbor; and on


s: homicides, and every one who smites wrongfully, devastators and


s: freebooters, all of them the first round torments, in various


s: The first circle below, the seventh in the order of Hell.


s: "Man may lay violent hands upon himself and on his goods; and,


s: therefore, in the second round must needs repent without avail


s: whoever deprives himself of your world, gambles away and


s: squanders his property, and laments there where he ought to be


s: Laments on earth because of violence done to what should have


s: "Violence may be done to the Deity, by denying and blaspheming


s: Him in heart, and despising nature and His bounty: and therefore


s: the smallest round seals with its signet both Sodom and Cahors,


s: and him who despising God speaks from his heart.


s: "Fraud, by which every conscience is bitten, man may practice on


s: one that confides in him, or on one that owns no confidence. This


s: makes; wherefore in the second circle nestle hypocrisy,


s: flatteries, and sorcerers, falsity, robbery, and simony, panders,


s: The second circle below, the eighth in the order of Hell.


s: "By the other mode that love is forgotten which nature makes, and


s: is created. Hence, in the smallest circle, where is the centre of


s: And I, "Master, full clearly doth thy discourse proceed, and full


s: me, they of the fat marsh, and they whom the wind drives, and


s: they whom the rain beats, and they who encounter with such sharp


s: tongues, why are they not punished within the ruddy city if God


s: be wroth with them? and if he be not so, why are they in such


s: And he said to me, "Wherefore so wanders thine understanding


s: beyond its wont? or thy mind, where else is it gazing? Dost thou


s: not remember those words with which thine Ethics treats in full


s: of the three dispositions that Heaven abides not; in continence,


s: malice, and mad bestiality, and how incontinence less offends


s: God, and incurs less blame?  If thou considerest well this


s: doctrine, and bringest to mind who are those that up above,


s: outside, suffer punishment, thou wilt see clearly why from


s: these felons they are divided, and why less wroth the divine


s: "O Sun that healest every troubled vision, thou dost content me


s: so, when thou explainest, that doubt, not less than knowledge,


s: pleaseth me; yet return a little back," said I, "there where thou


s: "Philosophy," he said to me, "points out to him who understands


s: it, not only in one part alone, how Nature takes her course from


s: the Divine Intellect and from its art. And if thou note thy


s: Physics  well thou wilt find after not many pages that your


s: art follows her so far as it can, as the disciple does the


s: master, so that your art is as it were grandchild of God. By


s: means of these two, if thou bringest to mind Genesis at its


s: beginning, it behoves mankind to obtain their livelihood and to


s: thrive. But because the usurer takes another course, he despises