were
at that time plotting to reverse their fortunes. He cared not whether
they were Guelf or Ghibelline in his passionate eagerness to win them
to decisive action that would restore him to his rights as a Florentine
citizen. He had no scruples in seeking foreign aid against the unjust
Florentines. An {26} armed attempt was made against Florence through
his fierce endeavours, but it failed, as also a second conspiracy
within three years, and by 1304 the poet had been seized with disgust
of his companions outside the gates. He turned from them and went to
the University of Bologna.

Dante's wife had remained in Florence, escaping from dangers, perhaps,
because she belonged to the powerful family of Donati. Now she sent
her eldest son, Pietro, to his father, with the idea that he should
begin his studies at the ancient seat of learning.

After two years of a quiet life, spent in writing his _Essay on
Eloquence_ and reading philosophy, the exile was driven away from
Bologna and had to take refuge with a noble of the Malespina family.
He hated to receive patronage, and was thankful to set to work on his
incomplete poem of the _Inferno_, which was sent to him from Florence.
The weariness of exile was forgotten as he wrote the great lines that
were to ring through the centuries and prove what manner of man his
fellow-citizens had cast forth through petty wish for revenge and
jealous hatred. He had written beautiful poems in his youth, telling
of love and chivalry and fair women. Now he took the next world for
his theme and the sufferings of those whose bodies have passed from
earth and whose souls await redemption. "Where I am sailing none has
tracked the sea" were his words, avowing an intention to forsake the
narrower limits of all poets before him.

"In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found one in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct; and e'en to tell
It were no easy task, how savage wild
That forest, how robust and rough its growth,
Which to remember only, my dismay
Renews, in bitterness not far from death."

{27}

So the poet descended in imagination to the underworld, which he
pictured reaching in wide circles from a vortex of sin and misery to a
point of godlike ecstasy. With Vergil as a guide, he passed through
the dark portals with their solemn warning.

"Through me men pass to city of great woe,
Through me men pass to endless misery,
Through me men pass where