in Poems (Author's Poems)
At once I understood,
and I was sure this was that sect of evil souls who were
hateful to God and to His enemies.
from the book "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri
At once I understood,
and I was sure this was that sect of evil souls who were
hateful to God and to His enemies.
I saw and I knew the soul of him,
who cowardly made the great refusal.
Heaven, to keep its beauty,
cast them out, but even Hell itself would not receive them
for fear the wicked there might glory over them.
This miserable state
is borne by the wretched souls of those
who lived without disgrace and without praise.
Their sighs, lamentations and loud wailings
resounded through the starless air,
so that at first it made me weep;
Strange utterances, horrible pronouncements,
words of pain, tones of anger,
voices shrill and faint, and beating hands,
all went to make a tumult that will whirl
forever through that turbid, timeless air,
like sand that eddies when a whirlwind swirls.
Abandon all hope, you who enter here.
And just as he who, with exhausted breath,
having escaped from the sea to shore,
turns to the perilous waters and gazes.
When I had journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.