Dante's Inferno — Vocabulary
Dante Alighieri
translated by H.W. Longfellow
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  And now begin the dolesome notes to grow
  Audible unto me; now am I come
  There where much lamentation strikes upon me.†26 more

  Violence can be done the Deity,
  In heart denying and blaspheming Him,
  And by disdaining Nature and her bounty.†20 more

  Therefore one people triumphs, and another
  Languishes, in pursuance of her judgment,
  Which hidden is, as in the grass a serpent.†14 more

  This on the belly, that upon the back
  One of the other lay, and others crawling
  Shifted themselves along the dismal road.†8 more

  "Slow it behoveth our descent to be,
  So that the sense be first a little used
  To the sad blast, and then we shall not heed it."†7 more

  Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter
  The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.†8 more

  Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous,
  So that by fixing on its depths my sight
  Nothing whatever I discerned therein.†8 more

  Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven,
  Injury is the end; and all such end
  Either by force or fraud afflicteth others.†5 more

  But because fraud is man's peculiar vice,
  More it displeases God; and so stand lowest
  The fraudulent, and greater dole assails them.†7 more

  There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;
  Examines the transgressions at the entrance;
  Judges, and sends according as he girds him.†6 more

  Not causeless is this journey to the abyss;
  Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought
  Vengeance upon the proud adultery.†7 more

  God in his mercy such created me
  That misery of yours attains me not,
  Nor any flame assails me of this burning.†4 more

  In her entreaty she besought Lucia,
  And said, "Thy faithful one now stands in need
  Of thee, and unto thee I recommend him."†6 more

  After the voice had ceased and quiet was,
  Four mighty shades I saw approaching us;
  Semblance had they nor sorrowful nor glad.†6 more

  The just are two, and are not understood there;
  Envy and Arrogance and Avarice
  Are the three sparks that have all hearts enkindled.†4 more

  And now there came across the turbid waves
  The clangour of a sound with terror fraught,
  Because of which both of the margins trembled;
  Not otherwise it was than of a wind
  Impetuous on account of adverse heats,
  That smites the forest, and, without restraint,
  The branches rends, beats down, and bears away;
  Right onward, laden with dust, it goes superb,
  And puts to flight the wild beasts and the shepherds.†1 more

  God in his mercy such created me
  That misery of yours attains me not,
  Nor any flame assails me of this burning.†3 more

  God they blasphemed and their progenitors,
  The human race, the place, the time, the seed
  Of their engendering and of their birth!†3 more

  Such as that ruin is which in the flank
  Smote, on this side of Trent, the Adige,
  Either by earthquake or by failing stay,
  For from the mountain's top, from which it moved,
  Unto the plain the cliff is shattered so,
  Some path 'twould give to him who was above;
  Even such was the descent of that ravine,
  And on the border of the broken chasm
  The infamy of Crete was stretched along,
  Who was conceived in the fictitious cow;
  And when he us beheld, he bit himself,
  Even as one whom anger racks within.†3 more

  Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,
  That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches
  Hateful to God and to his enemies.†3 more