"When I had heard my sage instructor name
Those dames and knights of antique days, o'erpowered
By pity, well-nigh in amaze my mind
Was lost; and I began: 'Bard! willingly
I would address those two together coming,
Which seem so light before the wind.' He thus:
'Note thou, when nearer they to us approach.
Then by that love which carries them along,
Entreat; and they will come.' Soon as the wind
Swayed them toward us, I thus framed my speech:
'O wearied spirits! come, and hold discourse
With us, if by none else restrained.' As doves
By fond desire invited, on wide wings
And firm, to their sweet nest returning home,
Cleave the air, wafted by their will along;
Thus issued, from that troop where Dido ranks,
They, through the ill air speeding: with such force
My cry prevailed, by strong affection urged.
"'O gracious creature and benign! who go'st
Visiting, through this element obscure,
Us, who the world with bloody stain imbrued;
If, for a friend, the King of all, we owned,
Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise,
Since thou hast pity on our evil plight.
Of whatso'er to hear or to discourse
It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that
Freely with thee discourse, while e'er the wind,
As now, is mute. The land, that gave me birth,
Is situate on the coast, where Po descends
To rest in ocean[8] with his sequent streams.
"'Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt[9],
Entangled him by that fair form, from me
Ta'en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still:
Love, that denial takes from none beloved,
Caught me with pleasing him so passing well,
That, as thou seest, he yet deserts me not.
Love brought us to one death: Caïna[10] waits
The soul, who spilt our life.' Such were their words;
At hearing which, downward I bent my looks,
And held them there so long, that the bard cried:
'What art thou pondering?' I in answer thus:
'Alas! by what sweet thoughts, what fond desire
Must they at length to that ill pass have reached!'
"Then turning, I to them my speech addressed,
And thus began: 'Francesca! your sad fate
Even to tears my grief and pity moves.
But tell me; in the time of your sweet sighs,
By what and how Love granted, that ye knew
Your yet uncertain wishes?' She replied:
'No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when misery is at hand. That kens
Thy learn'd instructor yet so eagerly
If thou art bent to know the primal root,
From whence our love gat being, I will do
As one who weeps and tells his tale. One day
For our delight we read of Launcelot,
How him love thralled. Alone we were, and no
Suspicion near us. Oft times by that reading
Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue
Fled from our altered cheek. But at one point
Alone we fell. When of that smile we read,
The wished for smile so rapturously kissed
By one so deep in love, then he, who ne'er
From me shall separate, at once my lips
All trembling kissed. The book and writer both
Were love's purveyors. In its leaves that day
We read no more.' While thus one spirit spake,
The other wailed so sorely, that heart-struck
I, through compassion fainting, seemed not far
From death, and like a corse fell to the ground."
Passing rapidly over circle three, in which the gluttons lie in mire under a pelting storm of hail, snow, and rain, torn to pieces by the three-throated Cerberus; and circle four, where misers and spendthrifts roll great weights against each other and upbraid each the other with his besetting sin; we come to circle five, where in the dark and dismal waters of the Styx the wrathful and the melancholy are plunged. It is singular that Dante makes low spirits or mental depression as much a sin as violence and lack of self-control:
"The good instructor spake: 'Now seest thou, son!
The souls of those, whom anger overcame.
This, too, for certain know, that underneath
The water dwells a multitude, whose sighs
Into these bubbles make the surface heave,—
As thine eye tells thee wheresoe'er it turn.
Fixed in the slime, they say: "Sad once were we,
In the sweet air made gladsome by the sun,
Carrying a foul and lazy mist within:
Now in these murky settlings are we sad."
Such dolorous strain they gurgle in their throats,
But word distinct can utter none.'"
As they stand at the foot of a dark tower, a light flashes from its top and another light, far off above the waters, sends back an answer through the murky air. Dante, full of curiosity, turns to Vergil for explanation:
"'There on the filthy waters,' he replied,
'E'en now what next awaits us mayst thou see,
If the marsh-gendered fog conceal it not.'
"Never was arrow from the cord dismissed,
That ran its way so nimbly through the air,
As a small bark, that through the waves I spied
Toward us coming, under the sole sway
Of one that ferried it, who cried aloud:
'Art thou arrived, fell spirit?'—'Phlegyas, Phlegyas,
This time thou criest in vain,' my lord replied;
'No longer shalt thou have us, but while o'er
The slimy pool we pass.' As one who hears
Of some great wrong he hath sustained, whereat
Inly he pines: So Phlegyas inly pined
In his fierce ire. My guide, descending, stepped
Into the skiff, and bade me enter next,
Close at his side; nor, till my entrance, seemed
The vessel freighted. Soon as both embarked,
Cutting the waves, goes on the ancient prow,
More deeply than with others it is wont."
Thus they cross the Styx, and soon approach the other shore, where luridly picturesque in the ink-black atmosphere rise the red-hot walls and towers of the city of Dis:
"And thus the good instructor: 'Now, my son
Draws near the city, that of Dis[11] is named,
With its grave denizens, a mighty throng.'
"I thus: 'The minarets already, sir!
There, certes, in the valley I descry,
Gleaming vermilion, as if they from fire
Had issued.' He replied: 'Eternal fire,
That inward burns shows them with ruddy flame
Illumed; as in this nether hell thou seest.'
"We came within the fosses deep, that moat
This region comfortless. The walls appeared
As they were framed of iron. We had made
Wide circuit, ere a place we reached, where loud
The mariner cried vehement: 'Go forth:
The entrance is here.' Upon the gates I spied
More than a thousand, who of old from heaven
Were shower'd. With ireful gestures, 'Who is this,'
They cried, 'that, without death first felt, goes through
The regions of the dead?' My sapient guide
Made sign that he for secret parley wished;
Whereat their angry scorn abating, thus
They spake: 'Come thou alone; and let him go,
Who hath so hardily entered this realm.
Alone return he by his witless way;
If well he know it, let him prove. For thee,
Here shalt thou tarry, who through clime so dark
Hast been his escort.' Now bethink thee, reader!
What cheer was mine at sound of those curst words.
I did believe I never should return."
While not only Dante but Vergil himself stand in dismay before the closed gates of the city, and the threatening devils on the walls, they hear a roar like that of a mighty wind, and behold! over the waters of the Styx a celestial messenger comes dry-shod, puts to flight the recalcitrant devils, and opening the gates with a touch of his wand, departs without having uttered a word.
Entering the city, Dante sees a vast cemetery covered with tombs, whence issue flames, and in which are shut up the souls of those who denied the immortality of the soul. Here occurs the celebrated scene between Dante and Farinata degli Uberti, who alone, after the battle of Montaperti, in 1260 (when the victorious Ghibellines seriously contemplated razing Florence to the ground), opposed the motion, and thus saved his native city from destruction. Here also Dante sees the father of his friend, Guido Cavalcanti.
In the center of the cemetery yawns a tremendous abyss, which leads to the lower regions of hell. Before they descend this, however, Vergil explains to Dante the various kinds of sins which are punished in hell. Those he has seen hitherto (gluttony, licentiousness, avarice, wrath, and melancholy) all belong to the category of incontinence; those which are to come are due to malice, and harm not only oneself but others. The sixth circle, that of the heretics, in which they now are, forms a transition between the above two general divisions. In circle seven, the next one below them, are punished the violent, subdivided into three classes: 1, those who were violent against their fellow-men,—tyrants, murderers, and robbers; 2, those who were violent against themselves,—suicides and gamblers; 3, those who were violent against God, nature, and art,—blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers. In circles eight and nine are the fraudulent and traitors, the various classes of which are given later.