CANTO III.
"THROUGH me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence, 5
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"
These words in sombre color I beheld 10
Written upon the summit of a gate;
Whence I: "Their sense is. Master, hard to me!"
And he to me, as one experienced:
"Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
All cowardice must needs be here extinct. 15
We to the place have come, where I have told thee
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous
Who have foregone the good of intellect."
