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rowed by a hoary ancient with white hair
who, when he neared our side, began to shout,
“Welcome to grief and welcome to despair,
79 you wicked ghosts! No glimpse of heavenly light
for you again, condemned to endless night,
with scorching heat or agonising frost.
82 Welcome to what forever hurts you most!
But you – a living man – cannot cross here.
My only business is to shift the dead,
85 so go another way, and fast!” he said
I did not move. “Trespasser, go!” he roared,
“I cannot carry you! Ghosts are my freight!
88 This boat can’t bear a living body’s weight.”
“Don’t bluster, Charon. You’ll convey this man,”
my master said. “On high it has been willed
your boat shall take him, so of course it can.” 91
The quiet reasoning of this reply
shut the grim captain’s mouth, although his rage
glowed in a ring of flame around each eye 94
glaring upon the crowded landing stage
where his rude voice turned the bare bodies white
and made teeth chatter. Gibbering with fright 97
or wailing with it, those damned souls cursed God,
mankind, themselves, cursed worst their parents’ bed,
the genitals and womb whence they were bred. 100
Beckoned by Charon, one by one they sped
downward. Like hawks they swooped into his boat
or spun down and round like drifts of leaves 103
abandoning a tree to coat the ground.
That demon with the eyes like flaming coals
packed tightly in his cargo of damned souls, 106
whacking the hindmost smartly with his oar.
I went out with them over the dark water
and as we left behind the nearest shore 109
I saw it was as crowded as before.
My kindly teacher said to me, “My son,
no nation is without a downward path 112
on which the dead are flocking here – each one
who dies within the shadow of God’s wrath.
Their weight of guilt, by force of gravity, 115
drags them all quickly down for punishment
at the true depth of their iniquity,
118 a state they want, yet dread. No gleam of light
(which they rejected) halts that downward flight.
Charon precipitates their grim descent,
121 so hates conveying you who go elsewhere.”
We reached the further shore and disembarked
onto a desolate and gloomy plain
124 shaking with earthquakes, and I saw it split
by a great gust of wind that carried out
black coiling clouds with crimson lightning lit.
127 So shocking was the sight that even yet,
despite worse things I later saw in Hell,
the recollection soaks my skin with sweat.
130 Exhausted then, I fell down in a fit.
4: Limbo of Sinless Pagans
A thunderclap jerked me at last awake 1
and upright, as if lifted by strong arms.
I found myself on a tremendous height
above so vast a slope of falling ground 4
it vanished under clouds beneath my sight.
I knew this pit must be the last abode
of every sinner cast away by God. 7
My guide, reading my thought, said, “It is so.
Here we must now descend, so let us go.”
His face was deathly pale. I cried aloud, 10
“Master, I dare not! Surely you must see
I cannot follow where you fear to tread.”
“Not fear but pity blanches me,” he said, 13
“pity for those beneath. We’ve far to go,
so onward, come!” He led me straight ahead
onto the widest ledge circling the pit 16
where twilit air was tremulous with sighs –
no other sounds of suffering were there.
My sadly smiling guide asked, “Do you know 19
who dwell within this painless part of Hell?
This is my place, with those who did not sin,
22 born before Jesus, therefore not baptised.
Limbo is where all sinless pagans dwell
outside the radiance of gospel’s grace.
25 Lacking baptism, you see, we did no wrong,
but cannot truly love the Trinity
and give to it the praise that is its due.
25 This is the only cause of our distress.”
That noble souls are thus condemned to pain
forever, and condemned to it in vain
31 depressed me for a while, and so I said,
“Now tell me, sir, please tell me, Master dear . . .”
(for now I needed utter certainty
34 about our faith which strikes all error dead)
“. . . has no one any time escaped from here
by their own virtue, or by virtue lent?”
37 My guide exactly knew just what I meant.
“Soon after I entered this zone of Hell,”
he said, “a Hero crowned with victory
40 passed through and down to pull out of the pit
Adam and Eve and all His ancestry –
Abel their first born son of righteous mind –
43 Noah the just whose ark preserved mankind –
Abraham patriarch of everyone –
Rachel whom Heaven put such cares upon
46 and wife of Jacob renamed Israel –
lawgiver Moses, psalmist David too –
and many more than I could tell or see
He raised to Heaven where I will never be.” 49
We passed as he was speaking through a crowd –
men, women, infants who forlornly stood
like rustling trees within a twilit wood, 52
but gradually between them there appeared
a light that grew much brighter as we neared,