CANTO I

The Divine Comedy - Inferno

by Dante Alighieri

Translated by Charles Eliot Norton

CANTO I, THE DIVINE COMEDY - INFERNO by Alighieri Dante
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Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill
which he begins to ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he
turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him into
the eternal world.


Midway upon the road of our life I found myself within a dark
wood, for the right way had been missed. Ah! how hard a thing it
is to tell what this wild and rough and dense wood was, which in
thought renews the fear! So bitter is it that death is little
more. But in order to treat of the good that there I found, I
will tell of the other things that I have seen there. I cannot
well recount how I entered it, so full was I of slumber at that
point where I abandoned the true way. But after I had arrived at
the foot of a hill, where that valley ended which had pierced my
heart with fear, I looked on high, and saw its shoulders clothed
already with the rays of the planet[1] that leadeth men aright
along every path. Then was the fear a little quieted which in the
lake of my heart had lasted through the night that I passed so
piteously. And even as one who with spent breath, issued out of
the sea upon the shore, turns to the perilous water and gazes, so
did my soul, which still was flying, turn back to look again upon
the pass which never had a living person left.


[1] The sun, a planet according to the Ptolemaic system.


After I had rested a little my weary body I took my way again
along the desert slope, so that the firm foot was always the
lower. And ho! almost at the beginning of the steep a
she-leopard, light and very nimble, which was covered with a
spotted coat. And she did not move from before my face, nay,
rather hindered so my road that to return I oftentimes had
turned.

The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the Sun was
mounting upward with those stars that were with him when Love
Divine first set in motion those beautiful things;[1] so that the
hour of the time and the sweet season were occasion of good hope
to me concerning that wild beast with the dappled skin. But not
so that the sight which appeared to me of a lion did not give me
fear. He seemed to be coming against me, with head high and with
ravening hunger, so that it seemed that the air was affrighted at
him. And a she-wolf,[2] who with all cravings seemed laden in her
meagreness, and already had made many folk to live forlorn,--she
caused me so much heaviness, with the fear that came from sight
of her, that I lost hope of the height And such as he is who
gaineth willingly, and the time arrives that makes him lose, who
in all his thoughts weeps and is sad,--such made me the beast
without repose that, coming on against me, little by little was
pushing me back thither where the Sun is silent.

[1] According to old tradition the spring was the season of the
creation.

[2] These three beasts correspond to the triple division of sins
into those of incontinence, of violence, and of fraud. See Canto
XI.


While I was falling back to the low place, before mine eyes
appeared one who through long silence seemed hoarse. When I saw
him in the great desert, "Have pity on me!" I cried to him,
"whatso thou art, or shade or real man." He answered me: "Not
man; man once I was, and my parents were Lombards, and Mantuans
by country both. I was born sub Julio, though late, and I lived
at Rome under the good Augustus, in the time of the false and
lying gods. Poet was I, and sang of that just son of Anchises who
came from Troy after proud Ilion had been burned. But thou, why
returnest thou to so great annoy? Why dost thou not ascend the
delectable mountain which is the source and cause of every joy?"

"Art thou then that Virgil and that fount which poureth forth so
large a stream of speech?" replied I to him with bashful front:
"O honor and light of the other poem I may the long seal avail
me, and the great love, which have made me search thy volume!
Thou art my master and my author; thou alone art he from whom I
took the fair style that hath done me honor. Behold the beast
because of which I turned; help me against her, famous sage, for
she makes any veins and pulses tremble." "Thee it behoves to hold
another course," he replied, when he saw me weeping, "if thou
wishest to escape from this savage place; for this beast, because
of which thou criest out, lets not any one pass along her way,
but so hinders him that she kills him! and she has a nature so
malign and evil that she never sates her greedy will, and after
food is hungrier than before. Many are the animals with which she
wives, and there shall be more yet, till the hound [1] shall come
that will make her die of grief. He shall not feed on land or
goods, but wisdom and love and valor, and his birthplace shall be
between Feltro and Feltro. Of that humble

[2] Italy shall he be the salvation, for which the virgin Camilla
died, and Euryalus, Turnus and Nisus of their wounds. He shall
hunt her through every town till he shall have set her back in
hell, there whence envy first sent her forth. Wherefore I think
and deem it for thy best that thou follow me, and I will be thy
guide, and will lead thee hence through the eternal place whew
thou shalt hear the despairing shrieks, shalt see the ancient
spirits woeful who each proclaim the second death. And then thou
shalt see those who are contented in the fire, because they hope
to come, whenever it may be, to the blessed folk; to whom if thou
wilt thereafter ascend, them shall be a soul more worthy than I
for that. With her I will leave thee at my departure; for that
Emperor who reigneth them above, because I was rebellious to His
law, wills not that into His city any one should come through me.
In all parts He governs and them He reigns: there in His city and
His lofty seat. O happy he whom thereto He elects!" And I to him,
"Poet, I beseech thee by that God whom thou didst not know, in
order that I may escape this ill and worse, that thou lead me
thither whom thou now hest said, so that I may see the gate of
St. Peter, and those whom thou makest so afflicted."


[1] Of whom the hound is the symbol, and to whom Dante looked for
the deliverance of Italy from the discorda and misrule that made
her wretched, is still matter of doubt, after centuries of
controversy.


[2] Fallen, humiliated.


Then he moved on, and I behind him kept.