From this burning cone, this crater,
Fire at intervals ascended
In which issued many souls,
Who again its womb re-entered,
Oft repeating and renewing
This ascending and descending.
At this time a scorching wind
Caught me when I least expected,
Blowing me from where I stood,
So that instantly it set me
In the depths of that abyss.
I too was shot up: a second
Wind-gust came, that with it brought
Myriad legions, who impelled me
Rudely to another part,
Where it seemed I saw assembled
All the other souls I had seen,
But who here were all collected;
And though this was the abode
Where the pains were most excessive,
I remarked that all therein
Faces bore of glad expression,
Countenances calm and sweet,
No impatience in their gestures
Or their words; but with their eyes
Fixed on heaven, as if thus set there
To ask mercy, ever weeping
Tears of tenderness and penance.
That it was the Purgatory
I at once by this detected,
Where the happy souls are purged from
Their more venial offences.
I was not subdued even here,
Though the demons stormed and threatened
Me the more: I rather felt
By the sight renewed and strengthened.
Then they, seeing that they could not
Shake my constancy, presented
To my eyes their greatest torments,
That which is in an especial
Sense called hell; and so they brought me
To a river, all the herbage
Of whose banks was flowers of fire,
And whose stream was sulphur melted;
The dread monsters of its tide
Were the hydras and the serpents;
It was very wide, and o'er it
Was a narrow bridge suspended,
Which but seemed a line, no more,
And so delicate and slender
That in my opinion no one
Without breaking it could ever
Pass across.
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