Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One. Данте Алигьери

roused me, not as he that rested wakes

      From slumbrous hours, but one rude fury shakes

      Untimely, and around I gazed to know

      The place of my confining.

      Deep, profound,

      Dark beyond sight, and choked with doleful sound,

      Sheer sank the Valley of the Lost Abyss,

      Beneath us. On the utmost brink we stood,

      And like the winds of some unresting wood

      The gathered murmur from those depths of woe

      Soughed upward into thunder. Out from this

      The unceasing sound comes ever. I might not tell

      How deep the Abyss down sank from hell to hell,

      It was so clouded and so dark no sight

      Could pierce it.

      “Downward through the worlds of night

      We will descend together. I first, and thou

      My footsteps taking,” spake my guide, and I

      Gave answer, “Master, when thyself art pale,

      Fear-daunted, shall my weaker heart avail

      That on thy strength was rested?”

      “Nay,” said he,

      “Not fear, but anguish at the issuing cry

      So pales me. Come ye, for the path we tread

      Is long, and time requires it.” Here he led

      Through the first entrance of the ringed abyss,

      Inward, and I went after, and the woe

      Softened behind us, and around I heard

      Nor scream of torment, nor blaspheming word,

      But round us sighs so many and deep there came

      That all the air was motioned. I beheld

      Concourse of men and women and children there

      Countless. No pain was theirs of cold or flame,

      But sadness only. And my Master said,

      “Art silent here? Before ye further go

      Among them wondering, it is meet ye know

      They are not sinful, nor the depths below

      Shall claim them. But their lives of righteousness

      Sufficed not to redeem. The gate decreed,

      Being born too soon, we did not pass ( for I,

      Dying unbaptized, am of them). More nor less

      Our doom is weighed,—to feel of Heaven the need,

      To long, and to be hopeless.”

      Grief was mine

      That heard him, thinking what great names must be

      In this suspense around me. “Master, tell,”

      I questioned, “from this outer girth of Hell

      Pass any to the blessed spheres exalt,

      Through other’s merits or their own the fault.

      Condoned?” And he, my covert speech that read,

      —For surance sought I of my faith,—replied,

      “Through the shrunk hells there came a Great One, crowned

      And garmented with conquest. Of the dead,

      He rescued from us him who earliest died,

      Abel, and our first parent. Here He found,

      Abraham, obedient to the Voice he heard;

      And Moses, first who wrote the Sacred Word;

      Isaac, and Israel and his sons, and she,

      Rachel, for whom he travailed; and David, king;

      And many beside unnumbered, whom he led

      Triumphant from the dark abodes, to be

      Among the blest for ever. Until this thing

      I witnessed, none, of all the countless dead,

      But hopeless through the somber gate he came.”

      Now while he spake he paused not, but pursued,

      Through the dense woods of thronging spirits, his aim

      Straight onward, nor was long our path until

      Before us rose a widening light, to fill

      One half of all the darkness, and I knew

      While yet some distance, that such Shades were there

      As nobler moved than others, and questioned, “Who,

      Master, are those that in their aspect bear

      Such difference from the rest?”

      “All these,” he said,

      “Were named so glorious in thy earth above

      That Heaven allows their larger claim to be

      Select, as thus ye see them.”

      While he spake

      A voice rose near us: “Hail!” it cried, “for he

      Returns, who was departed.”

      Scarce it ceased

      When four great spirits approached. They did not show

      Sadness nor joy, but tranquil-eyed as though

      Content in their dominion moved. My guide

      Before I questioned told, “That first ye see,

      With hand that fits the swordhilt, mark, for he

      Is Homer, sovereign of the craft we tried,

      Leader and lord of even the following three,—

      Horace, and Ovid, and Lucan. The voice ye heard,

      That hailed me, caused them by one impulse stirred

      Approach to do me honour, for these agree

      In that one name we boast, and so do well

      Owning it in me.” There was I joyed to meet

      Those shades, who closest to his place belong,

      The eagle course of whose out-soaring song

      Is lonely in height.

      Some space apart (to tell,

      It may be, something of myself ), my guide

      Conversed, until they turned with grace to greet

      Me also, and my Master smiled to see

      They made me sixth and equal. Side by side

      We paced toward the widening light, and spake

      Such things as well were spoken there, and here

      Were something less than silence.

      Strong and wide

      Before us rose a castled height, beset

      With sevenfold-circling walls, unscalable,

      And girdled with a rivulet round, but yet

      We passed thereover, and the water clear

      As dry land bore me; and the walls ahead

      Their seven strong gates made open one by one,

      As each we neared, that where my Master led

      With