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Although I come, I stay not;

And I to him:
But who art thou that hast become so squalid?"
"Thou seest that I am one who weeps," he answered,
And I to him: "With weeping and with wailing,

Thou spirit maledict, do thou remain ;

For thee I know, though thou art all defiled." Then stretched he both his hands unto the boat; Whereat my wary Master thrust him back, Saying, "Away there with the other dogs!" Thereafter with his arms he clasped my neck;

He kissed my face, and said: "Disdainful soul,
Blessed be she who bore thee in her bosom.
That was an arrogant person in the world;

Goodness is none, that decks his memory;
So likewise here his shade is furious.
How many are esteemed great kings up there,
Who here shall be like unto swine in mire,
Leaving behind them horrible dispraises!"
And I: "My Master, much should I be pleased,
If I could see him soused into this broth,
Before we issue forth out of the lake."
And he to me: "Ere unto thee the shore

Reveal itself, thou shalt be satisfied;
Such a desire 'tis meet thou shouldst enjoy."

A little after that, I saw such havoc

Made of him by the people of the mire, That still I praise and thank my God for it. They all were shouting, "At Philippo Argenti!" And that exasperate spirit Florentine

Turned round upon himself with his own teeth.
We left him there, and more of him I tell not;

But on mine ears there smote a lamentation,
Whence forward I intent unbar mine eyes.
And the good Master said: "Even now, my Son,
The city draweth near whose name is Dis,
With the grave citizens, with the great throng."
And I "Its mosques already, Master, clearly
Within there in the valley I discern
Vermilion, as if issuing from the fire
They were." And he to me: "The fire eternal
That kindles them within makes them look red,
As thou beholdest in this nether Hell."
Then we arrived within the moats profound,
That circumvallate that disconsolate city;
The walls appeared to me to be of iron.

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Not without making first a circuit wide,

We came unto a place where loud the pilot
Cried out to us, "Debark, here is the entrance."
More than a thousand at the gates I saw

Out of the Heavens rained down, who angrily
Were saying, "Who is this that without death
Goes through the kingdom of the people dead?"
And my sagacious Master made a sign
Of wishing secretly to speak with them.
A little then they quelled their great disdain,

And said: "Come thou alone, and he begone
Who has so boldly entered these dominions.

Let him return alone by his mad road;

Try, if he can; for thou shalt here remain,
Who hast escorted him through such dark regions."

Think, Reader, if I was discomforted

At utterance of the accursed words;
For never to return here I believed.

“O my dear Guide, who more than seven times
Hast rendered me security, and drawn me
From imminent peril that before me stood,
Do not desert me," said I, "thus undone;
And if the going farther be denied us,
Let us retrace our steps together swiftly."

And that Lord, who had led me thitherward,

Said unto me: "Fear not; because our passage
None can take from us, it by Such is given.

Comfort and nourish with a better hope;

But here await me, and thy weary spirit

So onward goes and there abandons me

For in this nether world I will not leave thee,"

My Father sweet, and I remain in doubt,
For No and Yes within my head contend.
I could not hear what he proposed to them;
But with them there he did not linger long,
Ere each within in rivalry ran back.
They closed the portals, those our adversaries,

On my Lord's breast, who had remained without
And turned to me with footsteps far between.
His eyes cast down, his forehead shorn had he

Óf all its boldness, and he said, with sighs,
"Who has denied to me the dolesome houses?"

And unto me: "Thou, because I am angry,

Fear not, for I will conquer in the trial,
Whatever for defence within be planned.

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This arrogance of theirs is nothing new ;

For once they used it at less secret gate, Which finds itself without a fastening still. O'er it didst thou behold the dead inscription; And now this side of it descends the steep, Passing across the circles without escort, One by whose means the city shall be opened."

CANTO IX.

THAT hue which cowardice brought out on me,
Beholding my Conductor backward turn,
Sooner repressed within him his new colour.
He stopped attentive, like a man who listens,
Because the eye could not conduct him far
Through the black air, and through the heavy fog.
"Still it behoveth us to win the fight,"

Began he; "Else . . . Such offered us herself...
O how I long that some one here arrive!"

Well I perceived, as soon as the beginning

He covered up with what came afterward,

That they were words quite different from the first; But none the less his saying gave me fear,

Because I carried out the broken phrase, Perhaps to a worse meaning than he had. "Into this bottom of the doleful conch

Doth any e'er descend from the first grade,
Which for its pain has only hope cut off?"
This question put I; and he answered me:
"Seldom it comes to pass that one of us
Maketh the journey upon which I go.
True is it, once before I here below

Was conjured by that pitiless Erictho,

Who summoned back the shades unto their bodics.

Naked of me short while the flesh had been,

Before within that wall she made me enter,
To bring a spirit from the circle of Judas;

That is the lowest region and the darkest,

And farthest from the heaven which circles all Well know I the way; therefore be reassured This fen, which a prodigious stench exhales, Encompasses about the city dolent,

Where now we cannot enter without anger."

And more he said, but not in mind I have it;
Because mine eye had altogether drawn me
Tow'rds the high tower with the red-flaming summit,
Where in a moment saw I swift uprisen

The three infernal Furies stained with blood,
Who had the limbs of women and their mien,
And with the greenest hydras were begirt;

Small serpents and cerastes were their tresses,
Wherewith their horrid temples were entwined.
And he who well the handmaids of the Queen
Of everlasting lamentation knew,

Said unto me: "Behold the fierce Erinnys
This is Megæra,
on the left-hand side;

She who is weeping on the right, Alecto;
Tisiphone is between ;" and then was silent.
Each one her breast was rending with her nails;

They beat them with their palms, and cried so loud,
That I for dread pressed close unto the Poet.
"Medusa come, so we to stone will change him!"
All shouted looking down; "in evil hour

Avenged
"Turn thyself round, and keep thine eyes close shut,
For if the Gorgon appear, and thou shouldst see it,
No more returning upward would there be."
Thus said the Master; and he turned me round
Himself, and trusted not unto my hands
So far as not to blind me with his own.
O ye who have undistempered intellects,
Observe the doctrine that conceals itself
Beneath the veil of the mysterious verses!
And now there came across the turbid waves
The clangour of a sound with terror fraught,
Because of which both of the margins trembled ;
Not otherwise it was than of a wind
Impetuous on account of adverse heats,
That smites the forest, and, without restraint,
The branches rends, beats down, and bears away;
Right onward, laden with dust, it goes superb,

we not on Theseus his assault!"

And

Mine eyes he loosed, and said: "Direct the nerve
Of vision now along that ancient foam,
Even as the frogs before the hostile serpent
There yonder where that smoke is most intense."
Across the water scatter all abroad,
Until each one is huddled in the earth,

puts to flight the wild beasts and the shepherds.

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More than a thousand ruined souls I saw,

Thus fleeing from before one who on foot Was passing o'er the Styx with soles unwet. From off his face he fanned that unctuous air,

Waving his left hand oft in front of him,

And only with that anguish seemed he weary. Well I perceived one sent from Heaven was he,

And to the Master turned; and he made sign That I should quiet stand, and bow before him. Ah! how disdainful he appeared to me!

He reached the gate, and with a little rod
He opened it, for there was no resistance.
"O banished out of Heaven, people despised!"
Thus he began upon the horrid threshold;
"Whence is this arrogance within you couched?
Wherefore recalcitrate against that will,

From which the end can never be cut off,
And which has many times increased your pain?
What helpeth it to butt against the fates?

Your Cerberus, if you remember well,
For that still bears his chin and gullet peeled."

Then he returned along the miry road,

And spake no word to us, but had the look
Of one whom other care constrains and goads
Than that of him who in his presence is ;

And we our feet directed tow'rds the city,
After those holy words all confident.
Within we entered without any contest;
And I, who inclination had to see
What the condition such a fortress hoids,
Soon as I was within, cast round mine eye,
And see on every hand an ample plain,
Full of distress and torment terrible.

Even as at Arles, where stagnant grows the Rhone,
Even as at Pola near to the Quarnaro,
That shuts in Italy and bathes its borders,

The sepulchres make all the place uneven;

So likewise did they there on every side, Saving that there the manner was more bitter; For flames between the sepulchres were scattered, By which they so intensely heated were,

That iron more so asks not any art.

All of their coverings uplifted were,

And from them issued forth such dire laments,
Sooth seemed they of the wretched and tormented

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