Dis

And the good Master said: Even now, my Son,
The city draweth near whose name is Dis,
With the grave citizens, with the great throng

And I: Its mosques already, Master, clearly
Within there in the valley I discern
Vermilion as if issuing from the fire

They were. And he to me: the fire eternal
That kindles them within makes them look red
As thou beholdest in this nether Hell.

Then we arrived within the moats profound,
That circumvallate that disconsolate city;
The walls appeared to me to be of iron.

Not without making first a circuit wide,
We came unto a place where loud the pilot
Cried out to us, Debark, here is the entrance.

More than a thousand at the gates I saw
Out of the Heavens rained down, who angrily
Were saying, Who is this that without death

Goes through the kingdom of the people of the dead?
And my sagacious Master made a sign
Of wishing secretly to speak with them.

A little then they quelled their great disdain,
And said: Come thou alone, and he begone
Who has so boldly entered these dominions.

Let him return alone by his mad road;
Try, if he can; for thou shalt here remain,
Who hast escorted him through such dark regions.