Dante Alighieri - Inferno

Hence he drew forth the shade of the First Parent,

And that of his son Abel, and of Noah,

Of Moses the lawgiver, and the obedient

Abraham, patriarch, and David, king,

Israel with his father and his children,

And Rachel, for whose sake he did so much,

And others many, and he made them blessed;

And thou must know, that earlier than these

Never were any human spirits saved.”

We ceased not to advance because he spake,

But still were passing onward through the forest,

The forest, say I, of thick-crowded ghosts.

Not very far as yet our way had gone

This side the summit, when I saw a fire

That overcame a hemisphere of darkness.

We were a little distant from it still,

But not so far that I in part discerned not

That honourable people held that place.

“O thou who honourest every art and science,

Who may these be, which such great honour have,

That from the fashion of the rest it parts them?”

And he to me: “The honourable name,

That sounds of them above there in thy life,

Wins grace in Heaven, that so advances them.”

In the mean time a voice was heard by me:

“All honour be to the pre-eminent Poet;

His shade returns again, that was departed.”

After the voice had ceased and quiet was,

Four mighty shades I saw approaching us;

Semblance had they nor sorrowful nor glad.

To say to me began my gracious Master:

“Him with that falchion in his hand behold,

Who comes before the three, even as their lord.

That one is Homer, Poet sovereign;

He who comes next is Horace, the satirist;

The third is Ovid, and the last is Lucan.

Because to each of these with me applies

The name that solitary voice proclaimed,

They do me honour, and in that do well.”

Thus I beheld assemble the fair school

Of that lord of the song pre-eminent,

Who o’er the others like an eagle soars.

When they together had discoursed somewhat,

They turned to me with signs of salutation,

And on beholding this, my Master smiled;

And more of honour still, much more, they did me,

In that they made me one of their own band;

So that the sixth was I, ’mid so much wit.

Thus we went on as far as to the light,

Things saying ’tis becoming to keep silent,

As was the saying of them where I was.

We came unto a noble castle’s foot,

Seven times encompassed with lofty walls,

Defended round by a fair rivulet;

This we passed over even as firm ground;

Through portals seven I entered with these Sages;

We came into a meadow of fresh verdure.

People were there with solemn eyes and slow,

Of great authority in their countenance;

They spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.

Thus we withdrew ourselves upon one side

Into an opening luminous and lofty,

So that they all of them were visible.

There opposite, upon the green enamel,

Were pointed out to me the mighty spirits,

Whom to have seen I feel myself exalted.

I saw Electra with companions many,

’Mongst whom I knew both Hector and Aeneas,

Caesar in armour with gerfalcon eyes;

I saw Camilla and Penthesilea

On the other side, and saw the King Latinus,

Who with Lavinia his daughter sat;

I saw that Brutus who drove Tarquin forth,

Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia,

And saw alone, apart, the Saladin.

When I had lifted up my brows a little,

The Master I beheld of those who know,

Sit with his philosophic family.

All gaze upon him, and all do him honour.

There I beheld both Socrates and Plato,

Who nearer him before the others stand;

Democritus, who puts the world on chance,

Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales,

Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus;

Of qualities I saw the good collector,

Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus saw I,

Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca,

Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy,

Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna,

Averroes, who the great Comment made.

I cannot all of them portray in full,

Because so drives me onward the long theme,

That many times the word comes short of fact.

The sixfold company in two divides;

Another way my sapient Guide conducts me

Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles;

And to a place I come where nothing shines.

Thus I descended out of the first circle

Down to the second, that less space begirds,

And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.

There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;

Examines the transgressions at the entrance;

Judges, and sends according as he girds him.

I say, that when the spirit evil-born

Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;

And this discriminator of transgressions

Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;

Girds himself with his tail as many times

As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.

Always before him many of them stand;

They go by turns each one unto the judgment;

They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.

“O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry

Comest,” said Minos to me, when he saw me,

Leaving the practice of so great an office,

“Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;

Let not the portal’s amplitude deceive thee.”

And unto him my Guide: “Why criest thou too?

Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;

It is so willed there where is power to do

That which is willed; and ask no further question.”

And now begin the dolesome notes to grow

Audible unto me; now am I come

There where much lamentation strikes upon me.

I came into a place mute of all light,

Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,

If by opposing winds ’t is combated.

The infernal hurricane that never rests

Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;

Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

When they arrive before the precipice,

There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,

There they blaspheme the puissance divine.

I understood that unto such a torment

The carnal malefactors were condemned,

Who reason subjugate to appetite.

And as the wings of starlings bear them on

In the cold season in large band and full,

So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;

No hope doth comfort them for evermore,

Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.

And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,

Making in air a long line of themselves,

So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,

Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.

Whereupon said I: “Master, who are those

People, whom the black air so castigates?”

“The first of those, of whom intelligence

Thou fain wouldst have,” then said he unto me,

“The empress was of many languages.

To sensual vices she was so abandoned,

That lustful she made licit in her law,

To remove the blame to which she had been led.

She is Semiramis, of whom we read

That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;

She held the land which now the Sultan rules.

The next is she who killed herself for love,

And broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus;

Then Cleopatra the voluptuous.”

Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless

Seasons revolved; and saw the great Achilles,

Who at the last hour combated with Love.

Paris I saw, Tristan; and more than a thousand

Shades did he name and point out with his finger,

Whom Love had separated from our life.