Thus I descended out of the first circle

       Down to the second, that less space begirds,

       And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.

      There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;

       Examines the transgressions at the entrance;

       Judges, and sends according as he girds him.

      I say, that when the spirit evil-born

       Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;

       And this discriminator of transgressions

      Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;

       Girds himself with his tail as many times

       As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.

      Always before him many of them stand;

       They go by turns each one unto the judgment;

       They speak, and hear, and then are downward hurled.

      "O thou, that to this dolorous hostelry

       Comest," said Minos to me, when he saw me,

       Leaving the practice of so great an office,

      "Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest;

       Let not the portal's amplitude deceive thee."

       And unto him my Guide: "Why criest thou too?

      Do not impede his journey fate-ordained;

       It is so willed there where is power to do

       That which is willed; and ask no further question."

      And now begin the dolesome notes to grow

       Audible unto me; now am I come

       There where much lamentation strikes upon me.

      I came into a place mute of all light,

       Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,

       If by opposing winds 't is combated.

      The infernal hurricane that never rests

       Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;

       Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

      When they arrive before the precipice,

       There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,

       There they blaspheme the puissance divine.

      I understood that unto such a torment

       The carnal malefactors were condemned,

       Who reason subjugate to appetite.

      And as the wings of starlings bear them on

       In the cold season in large band and full,

       So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

      It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;

       No hope doth comfort them for evermore,

       Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.

      And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,

       Making in air a long line of themselves,

       So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,

      Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.

       Whereupon said I: "Master, who are those

       People, whom the black air so castigates?"

      "The first of those, of whom intelligence

       Thou fain wouldst have," then said he unto me,

       "The empress was of many languages.

      To sensual vices she was so abandoned,

       That lustful she made licit in her law,

       To remove the blame to which she had been led.

      She is Semiramis, of whom we read

       That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;

       She held the land which now the Sultan rules.

      The next is she who killed herself for love,

       And broke faith with