The Divine Comedy (Illustrated Edition). Dante Alighieri

me. Hesitating I remain

      At war ’twixt will and will not in my thoughts.

      I could not hear what terms he offer’d them,

      But they conferr’d not long, for all at once

      To trial fled within. Clos’d were the gates

      By those our adversaries on the breast

      Of my liege lord: excluded he return’d

      To me with tardy steps. Upon the ground

      His eyes were bent, and from his brow eras’d

      All confidence, while thus with sighs he spake:

      “Who hath denied me these abodes of woe?”

      Then thus to me: “That I am anger’d, think

      No ground of terror: in this trial I

      Shall vanquish, use what arts they may within

For hindrance. This their insolence, not new,4

      Erewhile at gate less secret they display’d,

      Which still is without bolt; upon its arch

      Thou saw’st the deadly scroll: and even now

      On this side of its entrance, down the steep,

      Passing the circles, unescorted, comes

      One whose strong might can open us this land.”

      Footnotes

1 Phlegyas, so incensed against Apollo for having violated his daughter Coronis, that he set fire to the temple of that deity, by whose vengeance he was cast into Tartarus. See Virgil, Æneas, 1. vi. 618.

2 Boccaccio tells us, “he was a man remarkable for the large proportions and extraordinary vigor of his bodily frame, and the extreme waywardness and irascibility of his temper.”—“Decameron,” G. ix. N. 8.

3 Seven times.” The commentators, says Venturi, perplex themselves with the inquiry what seven perils these were from which Dante had been delivered by Virgil. Reckoning the beasts in the first Canto as one of them, and adding Charon, Minos, Cerberus, Plutus, Phlegyas, and Filippo Argenti, as so many others, we shall have the number; and if this be not satisfactory, we may suppose a determinate to have been put for an indeterminate number.

4 Virgil assures our poet that these evil spirits had formerly shown the same insolence when our Saviour descended into hell. They attempted to prevent him from entering at the gate, over which Dante had read the fatal inscription. “That gate which,” says the Roman poet, “an angel had just passed, by whose aid we shall overcome this opposition, and gain admittance into the city.”

      Canto IX

       Table of Contents

      ARGUMENT.—After some hindrances, and having seen the hellish furies and other monsters, the Poet, by the help of an angel, enters the city of Dis, wherein he discovers that the heretics are punished in tombs burning with intense fire; and he, together with Virgil, passes onward between the sepulchres and the walls of the city.

THE hue,1 which coward dread on my pale cheeks

      Imprinted, when I saw my guide turn back,

      Chas’d that from his which newly they had worn,

      And inwardly restrain’d it. He, as one

      Who listens, stood attentive: for his eye

      Not far could lead him through the sable air,

      And the thick-gath’ring cloud. “It yet behooves

      We win this fight” — thus he began — “ if not —

      Such aid to us is offer’d. — Oh, how long

      Me seems it, ere the promis’d help arrive!”

      I noted, how the sequel of his words

      Clok’d their beginning; for the last he spake

      Agreed not with the first. But not the less

      My fear was at his saying; sith I drew

      To import worse perchance, than that he held,

      His mutilated speech. “Doth ever any

      Into this rueful concave’s extreme depth

      Descend, out of the first degree, whose pain

      Is deprivation merely of sweet hope?”

      Thus I inquiring. “Rarely,” he replied,

      “It chances, that among us any makes

      This journey, which I wend. Erewhile ’tis true

      Once came I here beneath, conjur’d by fell

Erictho,2 sorceress, who compell’d the shades

      Back to their bodies. No long space my flesh

      Was naked of me, when within these walls

      She made me enter, to draw forth a spirit

      From out of Judas’ circle. Lowest place

      Is that of all, obscurest, and remov’d

      Farthest from heav’n’s all-circling orb. The road

      Full well I know: thou therefore rest secure.

      That lake, the noisome stench exhaling, round

      The city’ of grief encompasses, which now

      We may not enter without rage.” Yet more

      He added: but I hold it not in mind,

      For that mine eye toward the lofty tower

      Had drawn me wholly, to its burning top.

      Where in an instant I beheld uprisen

      At once three hellish furies stain’d with blood:

      In limb and motion feminine they seem’d;

      Around them greenest hydras twisting roll’d

      Their volumes; adders and cerastes crept

      Instead of hair, and their fierce temples bound.

      He knowing well the miserable hags

      Who tend the queen of endless woe, thus spake:

      “Mark thou each dire Erinnys. To the left

      This is Megaera; on the right hand she,

      Who wails, Alecto; and Tisiphone

      I’ th’ midst.” This said, in silence he remain’d

      Their breast they each one clawing tore; themselves

      Smote