Dante’s Inferno: Canto 3(iii) Paraphrased

Divine Comedy – Canto III

Lines: Translation :
1-9 I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.
I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.

SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT. I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,
PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT.

ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR
WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BEYOND TIME I STAND.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.

10-12 I read the inscription written above the Gates of Hell and asked my master what it meant.

13-15 He spoke as my superior and told me to be brave.

16-18 He told me I would pass among the lost people.

19-21 He held my hand and encouraged me to continue.

22-24 I cried as I heard others sighs and cries.

25-29 The angry voices created pandemonium.

30-31 Horrified, I asked who these people were.

32-36 He said to me they were the people who were neither good nor evil,

37-39 for Heaven was too perfect for them and Hell too wicked.

40-41 I asked him why they were so miserable.

42-47 He answered they have no hope of death from this nameless state.

48 He told me to move on.

49-52 I saw a banner amongst new people.

53-54 I did not know death had claimed so many.

55-57 I recognized one man. He had made the Great Denial.

58-60 I understood these were the people who hated God.

61-65 They ran naked with hornets and wasps who ate their skin.

65-66 The blood from their faces trickled down to their feet where it was devoured by maggots.

67-69 I saw group assembled at a river bank.

70-72 I asked who they were and why they seemed eager to cross the water.

73-74 He reprimanded me and said I would soon find out when we reached Acheron
beach.

75-78 I was ashamed and walked in silence.

79-80 An old man steered toward us in a boat.

81-84 He said he came to take souls into eternal darkness.

85-86 He told us to leave because we were alive.

87-90 He recognized I was a good soul and told me to go away to the other shore where an angel would escort me.

91-93 My guide told the man not to question him. He called the man Charon.

94-96 Charon became angry and yelled.

97-99 The spirits were fearful of him.

100-102 The spirits blasphemed God and family for they were damned and could not repent.

103-114 Charon took those evil spirits from the shore to Hell.

115-117 The spirits were gone, but new spirits came to the shore.

118-120 My master told me all those spirits were those who died in God’s wrath.

121-123 He said the spirits were pleased to be here because Hell is what they desired.

124-126 He explained no soul in grace ever came here, and that was why Charon was  upset at his presence.

127-129 The country shook and terrified me.

130-132 The ground let out a flame and I became blind