The Divine Comedy ~ English Edition, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Inferno

Canto III
English Edition, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Vestibule of Hell

The Opportunists

		View Annotations Image Gallery
1	Through me the way is to the city dolent;
2	Through me the way is to eternal dole;
3	Through me the way among the people lost.

4	Justice incited my sublime Creator;
5	Created me divine Omnipotence,
6	The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

7	Before me there were no created things,
8	Only eterne, and I eternal last.
9	All hope abandon, ye who enter in!

10	These words in sombre colour I beheld
11	Written upon the summit of a gate;
12	Whence I: Their sense is, Master, hard to me!

13	And he to me, as one experienced:
14	Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
15	All cowardice must needs be here extinct.

16	We to the place have come, where I have told thee
17	Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
18	Who have foregone the good of intellect.

19	And after he had laid his hand on mine
20	With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
21	He led me in among the secret things.

22	There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
23	Resounded through the air without a star,
24	Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.

25	Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
26	Accents of anger, words of agony,
27	And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,

28	Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
29	For ever in that air for ever black,
30	Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.

31	And I, who had my head with horror bound,
32	Said: Master, what is this which now I hear?
33	What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?

34	And he to me: This miserable mode
35	Maintain the melancholy souls of those
36	Who lived withouten infamy or praise.

37	Commingled are they with that caitiff choir
38	Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,
39	Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.

40	The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;
41	Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,
42	For glory none the damned would have from them.

43	And I: O Master, what so grievous is
44	To these, that maketh them lament so sore?
45	He answered: I will tell thee very briefly.

46	These have no longer any hope of death;
47	And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
48	They envious are of every other fate.

49	No fame of them the world permits to be;
50	Misericord and Justice both disdain them.
51	Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass.

52	And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,
53	Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,
54	That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;

55	And after it there came so long a train
56	Of people, that I ne'er would have believed
57	That ever Death so many had undone.

58	When some among them I had recognised.
59	I looked, and I beheld the shade of him
60	Who made through cowardice the great refusal.

61	Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,
62	That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches
63	Hateful to God and to his enemies.

64	These miscreants, who never were alive,
65	Were naked, and were stung exceedingly
66	By gadflies and by hornets that were there.

67	These did their faces irrigate with blood,
68	Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet
69	By the disgusting worms was gathered up.

70	And when to gazing farther I betook me.
71	People I saw on a great river's bank;
72	Whence said I: Master, now vouchsafe to me,

73	That I may know who these are, and what law
74	Makes them appear so ready to pass over,
75	As I discern athwart the dusky light.

76	And he to me: These things shall all be known
77	To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay
78	Upon the dismal shore of Acheron.

79	Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,
80	Fearing my words might irksome be to him,
81	From speech refrained I till we reached the river.

82	And lo! towards us coming in a boat
83	An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,
84	Crying: Woe unto you, ye souls depraved

85	Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;
86	I come to lead you to the other shore,
87	To the eternal shades in heat and frost.

88	And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,
89	Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead-
90	But when he saw that I did not withdraw,

91	He said: By other ways, by other ports
92	Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for,passage;
93	A lighter vessel needs must carry thee.

94	And unto him the Guide: Vex thee not, Charon;
95	It is so willed there where is power to do
96	That which is willed; and farther question not.

97	Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks
98	Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,
99	Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.

100	But all those souls who weary were and naked
101	Their colour changed and gnashed their teeth together,
102	As soon as they had heard those cruel words.

103	God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
104	The human race, the place, the time, the seed
105	Of their engendering and of their birth!

106	Thereafter all together they drew back,
107	Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,
108	Which waiteth every man who fears not God.

109	Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,
110	Beckoning to them, collects them all together,
111	Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.

112	As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
113	First one and then another, till the branch
114	Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;

115	In similar wise the evil seed of Adam
116	Throw themselves from that margin one by one,
117	At signals, as a bird unto its lure.

118	So they depart across the dusky wave,
119	And ere upon the other side they land,
120	Again on this side a new troop assembles.

121	My son,the courteous Master said to me,
122	All those who perish in the wrath of God
123	Here meet together out of every land;

124	And ready are they to pass o'er the river,
125	Because celestial Justice spurs them on,
126	So that their fear is turned into desire.

127	This way there never passes a good soul;
128	And hence if Charon doth complain of thee
129	Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports.

130	This being finished, all the dusk champaign
131	Trembled so violently, that of that terror
132	The recollection bathes me still with sweat.

133	The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,
134	And fulminated a vermilion light,
135	'Which overmastered in me every sense,

136	And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.

Produced by ELF