The banners of Hell's monarch do come forth towards us; therefore look, so spake my guide, if thou discern him. As a windmill viewed from far in heavy cloud, such was the fabric then. Dante draws behind his guide: no covert else was there. Now came he where the souls were all whelmed underneath, transparent as through glass. Some prone, some upright, some arched like a bow. When they came where the guide was pleased that he should see the creature eminent in beauty once, Virgil stepped from before him and made him pause. Lo Dis, and lo the place where thou hast need to arm thy heart with strength. How frozen and how faint he then became, ask me not, reader. I was not dead nor living. That emperor who sways the realm of sorrow stood forth at mid breast from the ice; and Dante in stature is more like a giant than the giants are in his arms. If he were beautiful as he is hideous now, and yet did dare to scowl upon his Maker, well from him may all our misery flow.
Upon his head three faces, vermilion, wan-yellow, and such as come from Nile. Under each, two mighty wings like sails on the wide sea, in texture like a bat; he flapped them, and from him issued still three winds, wherewith Cocytus to its depth was frozen. At six eyes he wept, tears with bloody foam. At every mouth his teeth a sinner champed. Far more than from that gnawing was the foremost panged by the fierce rending that stripped the back of skin. That upper spirit, who hath worse punishment, is Judas, head within and feet without. Of the other two, whose heads are under, Brutus hangs and speaks not; the other Cassius, large of limb. Night now re-ascends, and it is time for parting. All is seen.
Dante clipped him round the neck; when the wings enough were oped, Virgil caught the shaggy sides and descended between thick fell and jagged ice. At the point where the thigh turns on the haunches, the leader with pain turned round his head where his feet stood before, and grappled as one who mounts, that into hell methought we turned again. Expect that by such stairs as these we must depart from evil so extreme. At a rocky opening he placed Dante on a brink. Dante raised his eyes, believing he should see Lucifer where he was left, but saw him now with legs held upward. Arise. The way is long, and much uncouth the road. It was no palace-hall, but a dungeon of ill footing. Where is now the ice? How standeth he reversed? How from eve to morn so brief? Thou deemest thou art still on the other side the centre, where I grasped the abhorred worm. Thou wast on the other side so long as I descended; when I turned, thou didst overpass the point to which all heavy substance is dragged. Morn here rises when there evening sets; and he whose shaggy pile was scaled yet standeth fixed. On this part he fell from heaven, and the earth veiled herself with the sea. A place beneath is discovered not by sight but by a brooklet in a rock. By that hidden way they entered, to return to the fair world, and heedless of repose climbed, he first, I following, till the beautiful lights of heaven dawned through a circular opening in the cave. Thus issuing we again beheld the stars.
