{
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    "schema_version": "1.1",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/divine-comedy/inferno/canto-3.json"
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  "work": {
    "slug": "inferno",
    "name": "Inferno"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "divine-comedy",
      "name": "Divine Comedy",
      "url": "/sources/divine-comedy/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 3,
    "slug": "canto-3",
    "title": "Inferno · Canto 3",
    "of": 34,
    "words": 1273,
    "text": "## Inferno Canto 3\n\n\nCanto III\n\nArgument\n\nDante, following Virgil, comes to the gate of Hell; where, after having\nread the dreadful words that are written thereon, they both enter. Here, as he\nunderstands from Virgil, those were punished who had passed their time (for\nliving it could not be called) in a state of apathy and indifference both to\ngood and evil. Then, pursuing their way, they arrive at the river Acheron; and\nthere find the old ferryman Charon, who takes the spirits over to the opposite\nshore; which, as soon as Dante reaches, he is seized with terror, and falls\ninto a trance.\n\n\"Through me you pass into the city of woe:\nThrough me you pass into eternal pain:\nThrough me among the people lost for aye.\nJustice the founder of my fabric moved:\nTo rear me was the task of Power divine,\nSupremest Wisdom, and primeval Love.[1]\nBefore me things create were none, save things\nEternal, and eternal I endure.\nAll hope abandon, ye who enter here.\"\n\n[1: \"Power,\" Wisdom,\" \"Love,\" the three Persons of the Blessed\nTrinity.]\n\nSuch characters, in color dim, I mark'd\nOver a portal's lofty arch inscribed.\nWhereat I thus: \"Master, these words import\nHard meaning.\" He as one prepared replied:\n\"Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave;\nHere be vile fear extinguish'd. We are come\nWhere I have told thee we shall see the souls\nTo misery doom'd, who intellectual good\nHave lost.\" And when his hand he had stretch'd forth\nTo mine, with pleasant looks, whence I was cheer'd,\nInto that secret place he led me on.\n\nHere sighs, with lamentations and loud moans,\nResounded through the air pierced by no star,\nThat e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues,\nHorrible languages, outcries of woe,\nAccents of anger, voices deep and hoarse,\nWith hands together smote that swell'd the sounds,\nMade up a tumult, that forever whirls\nRound through that air with solid darkness stain'd,\nLike to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.\n\nI then, with horror yet encompast, cried:\n\"O master! what is this I hear? what race\nAre these, who seem so overcome with woe?\"\n\nHe thus to me: \"This miserable fate\nSuffer the wretched souls of those, who lived\nWithout or praise or blame, with that ill band\nOf angels mix'd, who nor rebellious proved,\nNor yet were true to God, but for themselves\nWere only. From his bounds Heaven drove them forth\nNot to impair his lustre; nor the depth\nOf Hell receives them, lest the accursed tribe\nShould glory thence with exultation vain.\"\n\nI then: \"Master! what doth aggrieve them thus,\nThat they lament so loud?\" He straight replied:\n\"That will I tell thee briefly. These of death\nNo hope may entertain: and their blind life\nSo meanly passes, that all other lots\nThey envy. Fame of them the world hath none,\nNor suffers; Mercy and Justice scorn them both.\nSpeak not of them, but look, and pass them by.\"\n\nAnd I, who straightway look'd, beheld a flag,\nWhich whirling ran around so rapidly,\nThat it no pause obtain'd: and following came\nSuch a long train of spirits, I should ne'er\nHave thought that death so many had despoil'd.\n\nWhen some of these I recognized, I saw\nAnd knew the shade of him, who to base fear[2]\nYielding, abjured his high estate. Forthwith\nI understood, for certain, this the tribe\nOf those ill spirits both to God displeasing\nAnd to His foes. These wretches, who ne'er lived,\nWent on in nakedness, and sorely stung\nBy wasps and hornets, which bedew'd their cheeks\nWith blood, that, mix'd with tears, dropp'd to their feet,\nAnd by disgustful worms was gather'd there.\n\n[2: This is commonly understood of Celestine V, who abdicated the\npapal power in 1249. Venturi mentions a work written by Innocenzio Barcellini,\nof the Celestine order, and printed at Milan in 1701, in which an attempt is\nmade to put a different interpretation on this passage. Lombardi would apply\nit to some one of Dante's fellow - citizens, who, refusing, through avarice or\nwant of spirit, to support the party of the Bianchi at Florence, had been the\nmain occasion of the miseries that befell them. But the testimony of Fazio\ndegli Uberti, who lived so near the time of our author, seems almost decisive\non this point. He expressly speaks of the Pope Celestine as being in Hell.]\n\nThen looking further onwards, I beheld\n\nA throng upon the shore of a great stream:\nWhereat I thus: \"Sir! grant me now to know\nWhom here we view, and whence impell'd they seem\nSo eager to pass o'er, as I discern\nThrough the blear light?\" He thus to me in few:\n\"This shalt thou know, soon as our steps arrive\nBeside the woful tide of Acheron.\"\n\nThen with eyes downward cast, and fill'd with shame,\nFearing my words offensive to his ear,\nTill we had reach'd the river, I from speech\nAbstain'd. And lo! toward us in a bark\nComes on an old man, hoary white with eld,\nCrying, \"Woe to you, wicked spirits! hope not\nEver to see the sky again. I come\nTo take you to the other shore across,\nInto eternal darkness, there to dwell\nIn fierce heat and in ice. And thou, who there\nStandest, live spirit! get thee hence, and leave\nThese who are dead.\" But soon as he beheld\nI left them not, \"By other way,\" said he,\n\"By other haven shalt thou come to shore,\nNot by this passage; thee a nimbler boat\nMust carry.\" Then to him thus spake my guide:\n\"Charon! thyself torment not: so 'tis will'd,\nWhere will and power are one: ask thou no more.\"\n\nStraightway in silence fell the shaggy cheeks\nOf him, the boatman o'er the livid lake,\nAround whose eyes glared wheeling flames. Meanwhile\nThose spirits, faint and naked, color changed,\nAnd gnash'd their teeth, soon as the cruel words\nThey heard. God and their parents they blasphemed,\nThe human kind, the place, the time, and seed,\nThat did engender them and give them birth,\n\nThen all together sorely wailing drew\nTo the curst strand, that every man must pass\nWho fears not God. Charon, demoniac form,\nWith eyes of burning coal, collects them all,\nBeckoning, and each, that lingers, with his oar\nStrikes. As fall off the light autumnal leaves\nOne still another following, till the bough\nStrews all its honours on the earth beneath;\nE'en in like manner Adam's evil brood\nCast themselves, one by one, down from the shore,\nEach at a beck, as falcon at his call.[3]\none by one, down from the shore.]\n\n[3: \"As a falcon at his call.\" This is Vellutello's explanation, and\nseems preferable to that commonly given: \"as a bird that is enticed to the\ncage by the call of another.\"]\n\nThus go they over through the umber'd wave;\nAnd ever they on the opposing bank\nBe landed, on this side another throng\nStill gathers. \"Son,\" thus spake the courteous guide,\n\"Those who die subject to the wrath of God\nAll here together come from every clime\nAnd to o'erpass the river are not loth:\nFor so Heaven's justice goads them on, that fear\nIs turn'd into desire. Hence ne'er hath past\nGood spirit. If of thee Charon complain,\nNow mayst thou know the import of his words.\"\n\nThis said, the gloomy region trembling shook\nSo terribly, that yet with clammy dews\nFear chills my brow. The sad earth gave a blast,\nThat, lightening, shot forth a vermilion flame,\nWhich all my senses conquer'd quite, and I\nDown dropp'd, as one with sudden slumber seized.",
    "project_translation": false,
    "license": null,
    "methodology_url": null
  }
}