The Weight of Pride — Divine Comedy

The gate closes behind you, and there is no plea if you look back. Dante hears it shut and does not turn, the soul's ill affection would make the crooked path seem straight. They climb the riven rock that winds like a wave, and Virgil says some little art is needed: watch the varying flexure of the path. They move so slowly the moon completes another phase before they thread the strait. At the top they stand on a plain lonelier than desert roads, uncertain, facing a white marble bank carved so perfectly that Polycletus and nature itself would be shamed. The carvings teach before the punishment arrives. Gabriel announces to Mary, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, so lifelike the word seems sealed in wax. David dances before the ark, girt in humble guise, less and yet more than kingly. Michol watches from a palace lattice, full of scorn. Trajan halts his procession for a grieving widow: Grant vengeance, sire, my son is murdered. He answers: wait till I return. She presses: if thou dost not return? Where I am, who then is, may right thee. It beseemeth well my duty be performed, ere I move hence: so justice wills; and pity bids me stay. Then the proud arrive, bent double under stone slabs like corbels crumpling knees to chest, so crushed Dante's eye struggles as Virgil's did. Dante turns to the reader: do not miss your purpose, amazed at the form of suffering, ponder what succeeds; at worst it cannot pass the mighty doom. Christians and proud: know ye not we are worms made at last to form the winged insect that soars to heaven's justice? Why buoy up your unfledged souls? One soul, showing most patience in his look, wails anyway: I can endure no more.