on 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.
* * * * *
Ed io: maestro, che e tanto greve
A lor che lamentar li fa si forte?
Rispose: dicerolti molto breve.
Questi non hanno speranza di morte."
_Inferno_, c. iii.

"Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans,
Resounded through the air pierced by no star,
That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues,
Horrible languages, outcries of woe,
Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse,
With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds,
Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls
Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd,
Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.
* * * * *
I then: Master! What doth aggrieve them thus,
That they lament so loud? He straight replied:
That will I tell thee briefly. These of death
No hope may entertain."
CARY'S _Dante, Inferno_, c. iii.

Here is Dante portrayed to the life in the very outset. What a
collection of awful images in a few lines! Loud lamentations, hideous
cries, mingled with the sound of clasped hands, beneath a starless
sky; and the terrible answer, as the cause of this suffering, "These
have not the hope of death."

The very first lines of the _Inferno_, when the gates of Hell were
approached, and the inscription over them appeared, paints the dismal
character of the poem, and yet mingled with the sense of divine love
and justice with which the author was penetrated.

"Per me si va nella citta dolente;
Per me si va nell' eterno dolore;
Per me si va tra la perduta gente:
Giustizia mosse 'l mio alto Fattore;
Fecemi la divina Potestate,
La somma Sapienza e 'l primo Amore.
Dinanzi a me non fur cose create,
Se non eterne; ed io eterno duro:
Lasciate ogni speranza voi che 'ntrate."
_Inferno_, c. iii.

"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 my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here."