HELL. Данте Алигьери

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26 Liars and Ulysses

       27 Another Liar’s Fate

       28 Doom of Sectarians

       29 Doom of Forgers

       30 Doom of More Falsifiers

       31 Ancient Giant Rebels

       32 Doom of Traitors

       33 Doom of More Traitors

       34 The First Traitor. Hell’s Exit

      1: The Dark Wood. Virgil

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      1 In middle age I wholly lost my way,

      finding myself within an evil wood

      far from the right straight road we all should tread,

      4 and what a wood! So densely tangled, dark,

      jaggily thorned, so hard to press on through,

      even the memory renews my dread.

      7 My misery, my almost deadly fear

      led on to such discovery of good,

      I’ll tell you of it, if you care to hear.

      I cannot say how I had wandered there, 10

      when dozy, dull and desperate for sleep

      my feet strayed out of the true thoroughfare,

      till deep among the trees an upward slope 13

      gave to my fearful soul a thrill of hope

      as rising ground at last became a hill,

      and looking up I saw a summit bright 16

      with dawn – the rising sun that shows us all

      where we should travel by its heavenly light.

      This quieted a little while the fright 19

      that churned the blood within my heart’s lagoon

      through the long journey of that gloomy night.

      Like shipwrecked swimmers in a stormy sea 22

      who, tired and panting but at last ashore,

      look back on swamping breakers thoughtfully,

      I turned to view, though wishing still to leave, 25

      the terrifying forest in the glen

      no living soul but mine had struggled through.

      My weary body rested then until, 28

      rising, I climbed the sloping wilderness,

      so that each footstep raised me higher still.

      But see! The uphill climb had just begun 31

      when suddenly a leopard, light, quick, gay

      and brightly spotted, sprang before my feet,

      dodging from side to side, blocking the way 34

      so swiftly and with such determination

      she sometimes nearly forced me to retreat.

      37 The sun had reached a height dimming the stars

      created with him on the second day,

      after the birth of time and space and light,

      40 and this recalled God’s generosity,

      letting me feel some good at least might be

      within the leopard’s carnival ferocity,

      43 so dappled, bright and jolly was that beast,

      but not so bright to stop me shuddering

      at a fresh shock – a lion came in sight,

      46 his mighty head held high, his savage glare

      fixed upon me in such a hungry way

      it seemed to terrify the very air.

      49 A wolf beside him, rabid from starvation,

      horribly hungry, far more dangerous,

      has driven multitudes to desperation,

      52 me too! For she established my disgrace,

      (that worst of beasts) by killing my desire

      to climb up higher to a better place.

      55 A millionaire made glorious by gain

      then hit by sudden loss of all he has,

      cries out in vast astonishment and pain.

      58 So did I, shoved down backwards, foot by foot,

      by pressure of that grim relentless brute

      till forced into the sunless wood again.

      61 Appearing in its shade a human shape

      both seemed and sounded centuries away,

      murmuring words almost beyond my hearing,

      therefore I yelled, “Pity and help me, please, 64

      whether you be a living man or ghost!”

      and pleaded, crouching down before his knees.

      “Not man – though once I was, in Lombardy, 67

      where both my parents dwelled in Mantua,

      and I was born in Caesar’s reign,” said he,

      “but educated in Augustan Rome 70

      when the

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