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CANTO IV

ARISING thunder from the vast Abyss

First roused me, not as he that rested wakes

From slumbrous hours, but one rude fury shakes

Untimely, and around I gazed to know

The place of my confining.

Deep, profound,

Dark beyond sight, and choked with doleful sound,

Sheer sank the Valley of the Lost Abyss,

Beneath us. On the utmost brink we stood,

And like the winds of some unresting wood

The gathered murmur from those depths of woe

Soughed upward into thunder. Out from this

The unceasing sound comes ever. I might not tell

How deep the Abyss down sank from hell to hell,

It was so clouded and so dark no sight

Could pierce it.

“Downward through the worlds of night

We will descend together. I first, and thou

My footsteps taking,” spake my guide, and I

Gave answer, “Master, when thyself art pale,

Fear-daunted, shall my weaker heart avail

That on thy strength was rested?”

“Nay,” said he,

“Not fear, but anguish at the issuing cry

So pales me. Come ye, for the path we tread

Is long, and time requires it.” Here he led

Through the first entrance of the ringed abyss,

Inward, and I went after, and the woe

Softened behind us, and around I heard

Nor scream of torment, nor blaspheming word,

But round us sighs so many and deep there came

That all the air was motioned. I beheld

Concourse of men and women and children there

Countless. No pain was theirs of cold or flame,

But sadness only. And my Master said,

“Art silent here? Before ye further go

Among them wondering, it is meet ye know

They are not sinful, nor the depths below

Shall claim them. But their lives of righteousness

Sufficed not to redeem. The gate decreed,

Being born too soon, we did not pass ( for I,

Dying unbaptized, am of them). More nor less

Our doom is weighed,—to feel of Heaven the need,

To long, and to be hopeless.”

Grief was mine

That heard him, thinking what great names must be

In this suspense around me. “Master, tell,”

I questioned, “from this outer girth of Hell

Pass any to the blessed spheres exalt,

Through other’s merits or their own the fault.

Condoned?” And he, my covert speech that read,

—For surance sought I of my faith,—replied,

“Through the shrunk hells there came a Great One, crowned

And garmented with conquest. Of the dead,

He rescued from us him who earliest died,

Abel, and our first parent. Here He found,

Abraham, obedient to the Voice he heard;

And Moses, first who wrote the Sacred Word;

Isaac, and Israel and his sons, and she,

Rachel, for whom he travailed; and David, king;

And many beside unnumbered, whom he led

Triumphant from the dark abodes, to be

Among the blest for ever. Until this thing

I witnessed, none, of all the countless dead,

But hopeless through the somber gate he came.”

Now while he spake he paused not, but pursued,

Through the dense woods of thronging spirits, his aim

Straight onward, nor was long our path until

Before us rose a widening light, to fill

One half of all the darkness, and I knew

While yet some distance, that such Shades were there

As nobler moved than others, and questioned, “Who,

Master, are those that in their aspect bear

Such difference from the rest?”

“All these,” he said,

“Were named so glorious in thy earth above

That Heaven allows their larger claim to be

Select, as thus ye see them.”

While he spake

A voice rose near us: “Hail!” it cried, “for he

Returns, who was departed.”

Scarce it ceased

When four great spirits approached. They did not show

Sadness nor joy, but tranquil-eyed as though

Content in their dominion moved. My guide

Before I questioned told, “That first ye see,

With hand that fits the swordhilt, mark, for he

Is Homer, sovereign of the craft we tried,

Leader and lord of even the following three,—

Horace, and Ovid, and Lucan. The voice ye heard,

That hailed me, caused them by one impulse stirred

Approach to do me honour, for these agree

In that one name we boast, and so do well

Owning it in me.” There was I joyed to meet

Those shades, who closest to his place belong,

The eagle course of whose out-soaring song

Is lonely in height.

Some space apart (to tell,

It may be, something of myself ), my guide

Conversed, until they turned with grace to greet

Me also, and my Master smiled to see

They made me sixth and equal. Side by side

We paced toward the widening light, and spake

Such things as well were spoken there, and here

Were something less than silence.

Strong and wide

Before us rose a castled height, beset

With sevenfold-circling walls, unscalable,

And girdled with a rivulet round, but yet

We passed thereover, and the water clear

As dry land bore me; and the walls ahead

Their seven strong gates made open one by one,

As each we neared, that where my Master led

With ease I followed, although without were none

But deep that stream beyond their wading spread,

And closed those gates beyond their breach had been,

Had they sought entry with us.

Of coolest green

Stretched the wide lawns we midmost found, for there,

Intolerant of itself, was Hell made fair

To accord with its containing.

Grave, austere,

Quiet-voiced and slow, of seldom words were they

That walked that verdure.

To a place aside

Open, and light, and high, we passed, and here

Looked downward on the lawns, in clear survey

Of such great spirits as are my glory and pride

That once I saw them.

There, direct in view,

Electra passed, among her sons. I knew

Hector and Æneas there; and Cæsar too

Was of them, armed and falcon-eyed; and there

Camilla and Penthesilea. Near there sate

Lavinia, with her sire the Latian king;

Brutus, who drave the Tarquin; and Lucrece

Julia, Cornelia, Marcia, and their kin;

And, by himself apart, the Saladin.

Somewhat beyond I looked. A place more high

Than where these heroes moved I gazed, and knew

The Master of reasoned thought, whose hand withdrew

The curtain of the intellect, and bared

The secret things of nature; while anigh,

But lowlier, grouped the greatest names that shared

His searchings. All regard and all revere

They gave him. Plato there, and Socrates

I marked, who closeliest reached his height; and near

Democritus, who dreamed a world of chance

Born blindly in the whirl of circumstance;

And Anaxagoras, Diogenes,

Thales, Heraclitus, Empedocles,

Zeno, were there; and Dioscorides

Who searched the healing powers of herbs and trees;

And Orpheus, Tullius, Livius, Seneca,

Euclid and Ptolemæus; Avicenna,

Galen, Hippocrates; Averrhoës,

The Master’s great interpreter,—but these

Are few to those I saw, an endless dream

Of shades before whom Hell quietened and cowered. My theme,

With thronging recollections of mighty names

That there I marked impedes me. All too long

They chase me, envious that my burdened song

Forgets.—But onward moves my guide anew:

The light behind us fades: the six are two:

Again the shuddering air, the cries of Hell

Compassed, and where we walked the darkness fell.