PROLOGUE

The Inscription over the Vestibule of Hell

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 mov’d:

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.

“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate”

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

-Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia di Dante: Inferno

[The Divine Comedy - Dante’s Inferno], Canto III: 1–21, 1317