In the year’s early nonage, when the sun
Tempers his tresses in Aquarius’ urn,
And now towards equal day the nights recede,
When as the rime upon the earth puts on
Her dazzling sister’s image, but not long
Her milder sway endures, then riseth up
The village hind, whom fails his wintry store,
And looking out beholds the plain around
All whiten’d, whence impatiently he smites
His thighs, and to his hut returning in,
There paces to and fro, wailing his lot,
As a discomfited and helpless man;
Then comes he forth again, and feels new hope
Spring in his bosom, finding e’en thus soon
The world hath chang’d its count’nance, grasps his crook,
And forth to pasture drives his little flock: 
So me my guide dishearten’d when I saw
His troubled forehead, and so speedily
That ill was cur’d; for at the fallen bridge
Arriving, towards me with a look as sweet,
He turn’d him back, as that I first beheld
At the steep mountain’s foot.  Regarding well
The ruin, and some counsel first maintain’d
With his own thought, he open’d wide his arm
And took me up.  As one, who, while he works,
Computes his labour’s issue, that he seems
Still to foresee the’ effect, so lifting me
Up to the summit of one peak, he fix’d
His eye upon another.  “Grapple that,”
Said he, “but first make proof, if it be such
As will sustain thee.”  For one capp’d with lead
This were no journey.  Scarcely he, though light,
And I, though onward push’d from crag to crag,
Could mount.  And if the precinct of this coast
Were not less ample than the last, for him
I know not, but my strength had surely fail’d. 
But Malebolge all toward the mouth
Inclining of the nethermost abyss,
The site of every valley hence requires,
That one side upward slope, the other fall.

At length the point of our descent we reach’d
From the last flag:  soon as to that arriv’d,
So was the breath exhausted from my lungs,
I could no further, but did seat me there.

“Now needs thy best of man;” so spake my guide: 
“For not on downy plumes, nor under shade
Of canopy reposing, fame is won,
Without which whosoe’er consumes his days
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth,
As smoke in air or foam upon the wave. 
Thou therefore rise:  vanish thy weariness
By the mind’s effort, in each struggle form’d
To vanquish, if she suffer not the weight
Of her corporeal frame to crush her down. 
A longer ladder yet remains to scale. 
From these to have escap’d sufficeth not. 
If well thou note me, profit by my words.”

I straightway rose, and show’d myself less spent
Than I in truth did feel me.  “On,” I cried,
“For I am stout and fearless.”  Up the rock
Our way we held, more rugged than before,
Narrower and steeper far to climb.  From talk
I ceas’d not, as we journey’d, so to seem