When Dante was about to swoon from the terrible sight, Vergil watched his opportunity, and as the great wings of Satan rose he sprang beneath them, with Dante following him. Grasping the hairy side of the monster, they commenced to descend still lower. And soon, to Dante's amazement, their downward path became an upward one, for Satan's waist was at the center of the earth and after they had passed it they must climb instead of descend.
Up and up they went, toiling with the greatest difficulty, passing through a chimney-like passageway that led for an incredible distance to the open air above; and when they arrived beneath the blue sky they were at the base of the Mountain of Purgatory, where men's spirits that were not doomed to Hell must purify themselves before they could hope to enter the Heaven that lay above them.
After the soot of Hell was washed from Dante's countenance he began with Vergil to ascend the mountain. They passed countless spirits all engaged in severe tasks, to cleanse themselves of sin before they could hope to attain the wonderful regions above; but these spirits were almost happy, although many of them were undergoing pain and suffering, for their trouble was not endless as was the case with the spirits of Hell, and they would certainly find happiness at last.
When they came to the summit of the mountain a wall of fire lay between them and Paradise. Through this they passed, and once on the other side Dante lost sight of Vergil, who could accompany him no further.
Dante was then greeted by his long lost Beatrice, now a radiant spirit, who had been chosen by divine will to show him the glories of Heaven. And with Beatrice guiding him, Dante passed upward through the crystal spheres, once getting a glimpse of the earth in his heavenly progress as it lay beneath him shining in the light of the sun. At last Dante had ascended to so great a height in Heaven that he beheld God Himself—but what he saw was so wonderful that it was impossible for him to write about it, and in this way his wonderful poem came to an end.
After completing the Inferno Dante went to Paris, where he met a great many scholars and wise men, who treated him with the utmost respect, but all the time he desired to be in his native city of Florence. When Henry of Luxembourg planned to lay siege to it, Dante encouraged him, hoping that he might enter with the conquerors and that his enemies might be overthrown. The siege took place, but it was unsuccessful, and the poet was compelled to wander far and wide among strangers for the rest of his life. As he lacked money, he had to take many humble offices to earn his bread, and more than once had to undergo the indignity of sitting among the jesters and buffoons at some great house that had honored him with its favor.
At last, weary of life and sick at heart, Dante went to Ravenna, where his genius was honored more worthily. His name had now penetrated throughout the greater part of the civilized world and he was known as one of the greatest geniuses that had ever lived. Many people believed that Dante had actually beheld the scenes that he described. When they met him on the streets they would draw aside to let him pass, thinking him a man whose destiny was different from their own, and they would whisper to each other that he was the man who had descended into Hell and come forth again alive and had looked with his own eyes at the horrors of the Infernal Regions.
No doubt the fame and the almost frightened homage that he received were pleasing to the sad soul of Dante, but he always remembered that he was still an outcast from his native city. Florence stubbornly refused to remove her ban and when Dante died he was buried at Ravenna. There his body still lies, with a Latin inscription on his tombstone that tells the world of the ingratitude of the city of Florence to her greatest son, who is also the greatest poet that Italy has ever seen.
CHAPTER X