eceive thee." And my Leader to him, "Why then dost thou cry out? Hinder
not his fated going; thus is it willed there where is power to do that
which is willed; and ask thou no more."

Now the woful notes begin to make themselves heard; now am I come where
much lamentation smites me. I had come into a place mute of all light,
that bellows as the sea does in a tempest, if it be combated by opposing
winds. The infernal hurricane that never rests carries along the spirits
with its rapine; whirling and smiting it molests them. When they arrive
before its rushing blast, here are shrieks, and bewailing, and
lamenting; here they blaspheme the power Divine. I understood that to
such torment are condemned the carnal sinners who subject reason unto
lust. And as their wings bear along the starlings in the cold season in
a troop large and full, so that blast the evil spirits; hither, thither,
down, up, it carries them; no hope ever comforts them, not of repose,
but even of less pain.

And as the cranes go singing their lays, making in air a long line of
themselves, so saw I come, uttering wails, shades borne along by the
aforesaid strife. Wherefore I said, "Master, who are those folk whom the
black air so castigates?" "The first of these of whom thou wishest to
have knowledge," said he to me then, "was empress of many tongues. To
the vice of luxury was she so abandoned that lust she made licit in her
law, to take away the blame she had incurred. She is Semiramis, of whom
it is read that she succeeded Ninus and had been his spouse; she held
the land which the Soldan rules. The other is she who, for love, slew
herself and broke faith to the ashes of Sichaeus. Next is Cleopatra, the
luxurious. See Helen, for whom so long a time of ill revolved; and see
the great Achilles, who at the end fought with love. See Paris,
Tristan--" and more than a thousand shades he showed me with his finger,
and named them whom love had parted from our life.

After I had heard my Teacher name the dames of eld and the cavaliers,
pity overcame me, and I was well-nigh bewildered. I began, "Poet,
willingly would I speak with those two that go together, and seem to be
so light upon the wind." And he to me, "Thou shalt see when they shall
be nearer to us, and do thou then pray them by that love which leads
them, and they will come." Soon as the wind sways them toward us I
lifted my voice: "O weary souls, come speak to us, if One forbid it
not."

As doves, cal