Intro (Canto III)

«Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!»
These words in sombre colour I beheld
Written upon the summit of a gate;
Whence I: «Their sense is, Master, hard to me!»
And he to me, as one experienced:
«Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
All cowardice must needs be here extinct.
We to the place have come, where I have told thee
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
Who have foregone the good of intellect.»
And after he had laid his hand on mine
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
He led me in among the secret things.
There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
Resounded through the air without a star,
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.
Languages diverse, horrible dialects,
Accents of anger, words of agony,
And I: «O Master, what so grievous is
To these, that maketh them lament so sore?»
He answered: «I will tell thee very briefly.
These have no longer any hope of death;