Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/68

48 And the good Master said: "Even now, my son,

The city draweth near whose name is Dis,

With the grave citizens, with the great throng."

And I: "Its mosques already, Master, clearly

Within there in the valley I discern

Vermilion, as if issuing from the fire

They were." And he to me: "The fire eternal

That kindles them within makes them look red,

As thou beholdest in this nether Hell."

Then we arrived within the moats profound,

That circumvallate that disconsolate city;

The walls appeared to me to be of iron.

Not without making first a circuit wide,

We came unto a place where loud the pilot

Cried out to us, "Debark, here is the entrance."

More than a thousand at the gates I saw

Out of the Heavens rained down, who angrily

Were saying, "Who is this that without death

Goes through the kingdom of the people dead?"

And my sagacious Master made a sign

Of wishing secretly to speak with them.

A little then they quelled their great disdain,

And said: "Come thou alone, and he begone

Who has so boldly entered these dominions.