| 1 |
Thus I descended from the first circle down to the second, which encloses a smaller space, but so much more suffering that it goads the souls to shriek. |
| 4 |
There stands Minos bristling and snarling: he examines the soul’s guilt at the entrance; he judges and passes sentence by how he wraps. |
| 7 |
I say that when the ill-born soul comes before him, it confesses all; and that connoisseur of sin |
| 10 |
sees which is its place in Hell; he girds himself with his tail as many times as the levels he wills the soul to be sent down. |
| 13 |
Always many stand before him; each goes in turn to judgment, they speak and hear and are cast into the deep. |
| 16 |
“O you who come to the dolorous hospice,” said Minos when he saw me, leaving off the exercise of his great office, |
| 19 |
“beware how you enter and to whom you entrust yourself: be not deceived by the spacious entrance!”And my leader to him: “Why still cry out? |
| 22 |
Do not impede his going, which is decreed: this is willed where what is willed can be done, so ask no more.” |
| 25 |
Now the grief−stricken notes begin to make themselves heard; now I have come where much weeping assails me. |
| 28 |
I came into a place where all light is silent, that groans like the sea in a storm, when it is lashed by conflicting winds. |
| 31 |
The infernal whirlwind, which never rests, drives the spirits before its violence; turning and striking, it tortures them. |
| 34 |
When they come before the landslide, there the shrieks, the wailing, the lamenting; there they curse God’s power. |
| 37 |
I understood that to this torment were damned the carnal sinners, who subject their reason to their lust. |
| 40 |
And as their wings carry off the starlings in the cold season, in large full flocks, so does that breath carry the evil spirits |
| 43 |
here, there, down, up; no hope ever comforts them,not of lessened suffering, much less of rest. |
| 46 |
And as the cranes go singing their lays, making a long line of themselves in the air, so I saw coming toward us, uttering cries, |
| 49 |
shades borne by the aforesaid violence; so I said: |
|
“Master, who are those people whom the black wind so chastises?” |
| 52 |
“The first of those about whom you wish to learn,” he said to me then, “was empress over many languages. |
|
So broken was she to the vice of lust that in her laws she made licit whatever pleased, to lift from herself the blame she had incurred. |
| 58 |
She is Semiramis, of whom we read that she succeeded Ninus and was his wife: she ruled the lands the Sultan governs now. |
| 61 |
The next is she who killed herself for love and broke faith with the ashes of Sichaeus; next is lustful Cleopatra. |
| 64 |
Behold Helen, who brought such evil times, and see the great Achilles, who battled against Love at the end. |
| 67 |
Behold Paris, Tristan” and more than a thousand shades he showed me, and named them, pointing, whom Love parted from our life. |
| 70 |
After I had heard my teacher name the ancient ladies and knights, pity came upon me, and I was almost lost. |
| 73 |
I began: “Poet, gladly would I speak with those two who go together and seem to be so light upon the wind.” |
| 76 |
And he to me: “You will see when they are closer to us; and then beg them by the love that drives them, and they will come.” |
| 79 |
As soon as the wind bends them toward us, I sent forth my voice: “O wearied souls, come speak with us, if another does not forbid it!” |
| 82 |
As doves, called by their desire, with wings raised and steady come to their sweet nest through the air,borne by their will, |
| 85 |
so did they emerge from the flock where Dido is,coming to us through the cruel air, so compelling was my deepfelt cry. |
| 88 |
“O gracious and benign living creature who through the black air go visiting us who stained the world blood-red, |
| 91 |
if the king of the universe were friendly we would pray to him for your peace, since you have pity on our twisted pain. |
| 94 |
Of whatever it pleases you to hear and to speak we will listen and speak to you, while the wind is quiet for us, as it is now. |
| 97 |
The city where I was born sits beside the shore where the Po descends to have peace with its followers. |
| 100 |
Love, which is swiftly kindled in the noble heart,seized this one for the lovely person that was taken from me; and the manner still injures me. |
| 103 |
Love, which pardons no one loved from loving in return, seized me for his beauty so strongly that, as you see, it still does not abandon me. |
| 106 |
Love led us on to one death. Caina awaits him who extinguished our life.” These words were borne from them to us. |
| 109 |
When I understood those injured souls, I bent my face downward, and I held it down so long that the poet said: “What are you pondering?” |
| 112 |
When I replied, I began: “Alas, how many sweet thoughts, how much yearning led them to the grievous pass!” |
| 115 |
Then I turned back to them and spoke, and I began: “Francesca, your sufferings make me sad and piteous to tears. |
| 118 |
But tell me: in the time of your sweet sighs, by what and how did Love grant you to know your dangerous desires?” |
| 121 |
And she to me: “There is no greater pain than to remember the happy time in wretchedness; and this your teacher knows. |
| 124 |
But if you have so much desire to know the first root of our love, I will do as one who weeps and speaks. |
| 127 |
We were reading one day, for pleasure, of Lancelot, how Love beset him; we were alone and without any suspicion. |
| 130 |
Many times that reading drove our eyes together and turned our faces pale; but one point alone was the one that overpowered us. |
| 133 |
When we read that the yearned-for smile was kissed by so great a lover, he, who will never be separated from me, |
| 136 |
kissed my mouth all trembling. Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it: that day we read there no further.” |
| 139 |
While one spirit said this, the other was weeping so that for pity I fainted as if I were dying, |
| 142 |
and I fell as a dead body falls. |
