I heard a voice proclaiming even then,

"Honor unto the most high poet yield;
His shade, that had departed, comes agen."
And when the voice had ended and was stilled,
Four mighty shades approaching I survey,
Whose countenance neither joy nor sadness filled.
My gracious master then began to say,

"See him that comes with sword in hand along, And leadeth, like an honored liege, the

way;

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That is Homeros, paramount

of song;

Horatius, the satirist, is nigh;

Ovidius third, Lucanus last in throng.

Because that each partaketh, as do I,

The name, which from the single voice did sound,

They do me honor, and do well thereby :
Thus all the fair assembled school I found,
Of this the master of sublimest song,
That like an eagle flies above their bound.

They reasoned now among themselves not long,

And turned to me with signs of courtesy,

My gracious master smiling hereupon;

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And far more honor they vouchsafed to me,
By making me a member of their train,
And sixth in this deep-witted company.
Then moved we on towards the light amain,
Discoursing things which here 'tis good to hide,

As there to speak of them was meet again.

A noble castle we arrived beside,

That in the midst of seven high walls doth stand,

And fair protecting waters round it glide;

Over the which we passed, like to firm land;

By seven gates these noble wits and I

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Came through, where fresh and verdant swards expand. A tribe was there of grave and tardy eye;

Semblance of great authority they wore, And spoke with voices soft unfrequently. Thus to a corner of the tract we bore,

And reacht an open place full high and sheen, Whence all could be descried and well lookt o'er. There, in my front, upon the enamel green,

Appeared the mighty shades without disguise,

Whom in my soul I glory to have seen.

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I saw Electra with large companies

Of friends, where Hector and Eneas be, And Cæsar, arm'd with his gier-eagle eyes. I saw Camilla and Penthesilee

Another way, where king Latinus, graced,

Sat in his child Lavinia's company;

I saw that Brutus who the Tarquin chased,
Lucrece, Cornelia, Marcia, Julia;
And all alone I saw Saladdin placed.
And lifting thence my lids a little way,

I saw the master unto those who know,
Sitting his philosophic clan to sway;
Him all admire, and honor to him show.

I saw both Plato there, and Socrates,
That nigher stand to him before the row.
Zeno, Heraclitus, Empedocles,

That giver of all to chance, Democritus,
And Anaxagoras, Diogenes,
Thales, and the good specialist (I thus

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Call Dioscorides); Orpheus did I see,

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And ethic Seneca, Tullius, Livius,

Euclid geometer, and Ptolemee,

Galenus, Avicen, Hippocrates,

And Averrois, (the mighty gloss made he).
I cannot throughly call to mind all these,

For my long theme pursues me with such care,
My tongue seems oft before its task to freeze.
From six to twain our troop was minisht there;
My wise guide led me forth another way,
Out of the still into the trembling air;

I reacht a land, where never glints a ray.

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CANTO V.

So passed I from that zone, the first in hell,

Down to the next, which less includes of space, And pains more poignant, which to shrieks compel. There snarling Minos, at the entering-place,

Stands horrible, and crimes examines there, And judges, and decides with knots each case. I say, when miscreated spirits fare

Before him, cleanly each herself confesses, And he, who knowingly can faults compare, Makes out what place she suits in hell, and dresses 10

His tail as many times about his waist,

As she must go down grades in those abysses.
Before him many souls are ever placed,

In turn advances each, her doom to know,

And speaks, and hears, and downward then is chased. 15

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