stro, il senso lor m'e duro.
Ed egli a me, come persona accorta:
Qui si convien lasciare ogni sospetto,
Ogni vilta convien che qui sia morta.
Noi sem venuti al luogo ov'io t'ho detto
Che vederai le genti dolorose
Ch' hanno perduto il ben dello'ntelletto.
E poiche la sua mano alla mia pose
Con lieto volto, ond'io mi confortai,
Mi mise dentro alle secrete cose.
Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai
Risonavan per l'aer senza stelle,
Perch'io al cominciar ne lagrimai.
Diverse lingue, orribili favelle,
Parole di dolore, accenti d'ira,
Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle,
Facevano un tumulto il qual s'aggira
Sempre'n quell'aria senza tempo tinta,
Come la rena quando'l turbo spira."

_Inferno_, III. 1-30.

"'Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!'
These words in sombre color I beheld
Written upon the summit of a gate;
Whence I: 'Their sense is, Master, hard to me!'
And he to me, as one experienced:
'Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
All cowardice must needs be here extinct.
We to the place have come, where I have told thee
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
Who have foregone the good of intellect.'
And after he had laid his hand on mine
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
He led me in among the secret things.
There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
Resounded through the air without a star,
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.
Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
Accents of anger, words of agony,
And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on
Forever in that air forever black,
Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes."--_Longfellow_.

"'Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of