Introduction to the Inferno
The Mission of Virgil
Daylight was going, and the dusky air
was now releasing from their weary toil
all living things on earth; and I alone
was making ready to sustain the war
both of the road and of the sympathy,
which my unerring memory will relate.
O Muses, O high Genius, help me now!
O Memory, that wrotest what I saw,
herewith shall thy nobility appear!
I then began: “Consider, Poet, thou
that guidest me, if strong my virtue be,
or e’er thou trust me to the arduous course.
Thou sayest that the sire of Silvio entered,
when still corruptible, the immortal world,
and that while in his body he was there.
Hence, that to him the Opponent of all ill
was courteous, considering the great result
that was to come from him, both who, and what,
seems not unfitting to a thoughtful man;
for he of fostering Rome and of her sway
in the Empyrean Heaven was chosen as sire;
and both of these, if one would tell the truth,
were foreordained unto the holy place,
where greatest Peter’s follower hath his seat.
While on this quest, for which thou giv’st him praise,
he heard the things which of his victory
the causes were, and of the Papal Robe.
The Chosen Vessel went there afterward,
to bring thence confirmation in the faith,
through which one enters on salvation’s path.
But why should I go there, or who concedes it?
I ’m not Aeneas, nor yet Paul am I;
me worthy of this, nor I nor others deem.
If, therefore, I consent to come, I fear
lest foolish be my coming; thou art wise,
and canst much better judge than I can talk.”
And such as he who unwills what he willed,
and changes so his purpose through new thoughts,
that what he had begun he wholly leaves;
such on that gloomy slope did I become;
for, as I thought it over, I gave up
the enterprise so hastily commenced.
“If I have rightly understood thy words,”
replied the shade of that Great-hearted man,
“thy soul is hurt by shameful cowardice,
which many times so sorely hinders one,
that from an honored enterprise it turns him,
as seeing falsely doth a shying beast.
In order that thou rid thee of this fear,
I ’ll tell thee why I came, and what I heard
the first time I was grieved on thy account.
Among the intermediate souls I was,
when me a Lady called, so beautiful
and happy, that I begged her to command.
Her eyes were shining brighter than a star,
when sweetly and softly she began to say,
as with an angel’s voice she spoke to me:
‘O courteous Mantuan spirit, thou whose fame
is still enduring in the world above,
and will endure as long as lasts the world,
a friend of mine, but not a friend of Fortune,
is on his journey o’er the lonely slope
obstructed so, that he hath turned…
