Thieves, to remind them of their sneaking trade,
are repeatedly transformed from men into snakes, hissing and creeping.
Hypocrites march in slow procession with faces painted and with leaden
cloaks all glittering with gold on the outside. With such realism does
Dante declare the nature of sin and its inevitable consequences.
Let us now accompany Dante through the Underworld. The scene opens at
dawn in a dark and tangled wood. Dante, the type of humanity, is unable
to ascend the Hill of the Lord, as we said before, because his way is
barred successively by a leopard, a lion and a wolf, representing the
passions of life. Virgil (Reason), sent by Beatrice (Revelation), offers
to conduct the poet by another road. It is a way which leads through
Hell and Purgatory. Through the heavens Beatrice herself will be the
guide. Descending through the earth the two poets come to the Vestibule
of Hell. On the gate appears this inscription:
"Through me you pass into the city of woe
Through me you pass into eternal pain
Through me among the people lost for aye
Justice, the founder of my fabric, moved
To rear me was the task of Power divine,
Supremest wisdom and primeval Love
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
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