The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno]

by Dante Aligheri

Translated by Charles Eliot Norton




HELL




To

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

E come sare' io sense lui corso?

It is a happiness for me to connect this volume with the memory
of my friend and master from youth. I was but a beginner in the
study of the Divine Comedy when I first had his incomparable aid
in the understanding of it. During the last year of his life he
read the proofs of this volume, to what great advantage to my
work may readily be conceived.

When, in the early summer of this year, the printing of the
Purgatory began, though illness made it an exertion to him, he
continued this act of friendship, and did not cease till, at the
fifth canto, he laid down the pencil forever from his dear and
honored hand.

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.


CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,

1 October, 1891

The text followed in this translation is, in general, that of
Witte. In a few cases I have preferred the readings which the
more recent researches of the Rev. Dr. Edward Moore, of Oxford,
seem to have established as correct.



CONTENTS

CANTO I. Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill
which he begins to ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he
turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him into
the eternal world.

CANTO II. Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged at
the outset.--Virgil cheers him by telling him that he has been
sent to his aid by a blessed Spirit from Heaven.--Dante casts off
fear, and the poets proceed.

CANTO III. The gate of Hell. Virgil leads Dante in.--The
punishment of the neither good nor bad.--Acheron, and the sinners
on its bank.--Charon.--Earthquake.--Dante swoons.

CANTO IV. The further side of Acheron.--Virgil leads Dante into
Limbo, the First Circle of Hell, containing the spirits of those
who lived virtuously but without Christianity.--Greeting of
Virgil by his fellow poets.--They enter a castle, where are the
shades of ancient worthies.--Virgil and Dante depart.

CANTO V. The Second Circle: Carnal sinners.--Minos.--Shades
renowned of old.--Francesca da Rimini.

CANTO VI. The Third Circle: the Gluttonous.--Cerberus.--Ciacco.

CANTO VII. The Fourth Circle: the Avaricious and the Prodigal.--
Pluto.--Fortune.--The Styx.--The Fifth Circle: the Wrathful and
the Sullen.

CANTO VIII. The Fifth Circle.--Phlegyas and his boat.--Passage of
the Styx.--Filippo Argenti.--The City of Dis.--The demons refuse
entrance to the poets.

CANTO IX. The City of Dis.--Eriehtho.--The Three Furies.--The
Heavenly Messenger.--The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.

CANTO X. The Sixth Circle: Heresiarchs.--Farinata degli Uberti.--
Cavalcante Cavalcanti.--Frederick II.

CANTO XI. The Sixth Circle: Heretics.--Tomb of Pope Anastasius.--
Discourse of Virgil on the divisions of the lower Hell.

CANTO XII. First round of the Seventh Circle: those who do
violence to others.--Tyrants and Homicides.--The Minotaur.--The
Centaurs.--Chiron.--Nessus.--The River of Boiling Blood, and the
Sinners in it.

CANTO XIII. Second round of the Seventh Circle: those who have
done violence to themselves and to their goods.--The Wood of


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