The hue of coward dread on Dante's pale cheeks chases from Virgil the colour his own had newly worn. Virgil stands as one who listens. His eye cannot lead him far through sable air. It yet behoves they win this fight. If not, such aid is offered. Oh, how long it seems ere the promised help arrive. Dante notes how the last words do not agree with the first, and fear draws a worse import than Virgil perhaps held. He asks whether any from the first degree, whose pain is only the loss of sweet hope, ever descend this deep. Rarely, Virgil says. Once he came, conjured by the sorceress Erictho, to draw a spirit from Judas' circle. He knows the road. They still may not enter the city of grief without rage.
Dante's eye is drawn to the lofty tower's burning top. Three hellish Furies rise, stained with blood, hydras rolling round them, adders for hair. Virgil names Megaera, Alecto, and Tisiphone, then falls silent. They claw their breasts and raise such shrill clamour that Dante clings to him. Hasten Medusa, so to adamant him shall we change. Virgil tells Dante to turn and keep his countenance hid: if the Gorgon is shown, the return upwards would be forever lost. He does not trust Dante's hands. With his own he also hides him.
A loud-crashing sound comes over the waves and makes either shore tremble. Virgil looses Dante's eyes. As frogs before a serpent, more than a thousand spirits flee before one who passes with unwet feet the Stygian sound. Dante perceives he is sent from heaven. Virgil signals to stand quiet and bend. The messenger comes to the gate, touches it with his wand, and it flies open without impediment. Outcasts of heaven: why kick against a will never frustrate of its end? Cerberus still bears his throat peeled of hair from that lesson. The messenger turns back and speaks no syllable to the travellers, pressed by other care. They enter unopposed. The place is thick with sepulchres, as at Arles or Pola, save that here flames scatter among the graves. Lids hang suspended. Lamentable moans issue from beneath. These are the arch-heretics, like with like, monuments different in degrees of heat. Virgil turns to the right. They pass betwixt the afflicted and the ramparts high.
Coming Up in Chapter 10
The lids of the tombs hang open, and nobody keeps watch. A Tuscan voice will rise from a vault. A man will stand from the girdle up, as if in high scorn he held even hell, and Virgil will thrust Dante forward with a warning to keep his words clear.
