he starless air:
Whereat at first I began to weep, strange tongues, hurried speech, words
of pain, accents of wrath, voices loud and weak, and the sound of hands
accompanying them, made a tumult which revolves forever in that air
endlessly dark, like sands blowing before a whirlwind. And I, whose head
was hooded with horror, exclaimed: 'Master, what is it I hear? What
kind of people is it that seems so vanquished by grief? And he replied:
'This is the miserable way followed by the sorry souls of those who
lived without infamy and without glory. They are mingled with the mean
choir of those angels who were not rebels and were not faithful to God,
but were for themselves. Heaven cast them out lest its beauty should be
spoiled; and deep Hell will not receive them, because the damned might
derive some satisfaction from them.'

"'Master,' I said, 'what is so grievous to them which makes them
complain so loud?' 'I shall tell thee right briefly' he answered. 'These
people have no hope of death and their blind life's so vile that they
are envious of any other lot. The world allows no report of them to
last: mercy and justice disdain them. Let us not speak of them but look
and pass by!' And I, looking, saw a banner which ran circling so swift
that it seemed scornful of all rest: and after it there came trailing
such a long train of people that I should never have thought death had
undone so many. When I had made out one or two of them I saw and
recognized the shade of him who, for cowardice, made the great refusal.
Forthwith I understood and was convinced that this was the sect of
poltroons, obnoxious both to God and to God's enemies. These luckless
creatures who never had been really alive, were naked and badly stung
by flies and wasps which were there. These insects streaked their faces
with blood which, mixed with tears, was caught by disgusting worms at
their feet--" (Inferno III, 33. Grandgent's translation.) In reading
that description of the punishment of the lukewarm, one cannot fail to
observe that not one is called by name. Because they "lived without
infamy and without glory" their name deserves to be lost forever to
the world.

Of the renown of Dante's own name our poet has no misgivings. He reveals
himself as a man having supreme confidence in his own powers. Boccaccio
represents him as saying when he was with his party at the head of the
government of the republic of Florence, and when there was question of
sendi