2 “Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni toward us; therefore look forward,” 3 said my Master; “see if thou discern him.” As when a thick fog breathes, or when our hemisphere darkens to night, 6 a mill which the wind is turning seems from afar, such a structure it seemed to me that I then saw. Then, because of the wind, I drew me behind 9 my Leader; for no other shelter was there. I was now (and with fear I put it into verse), there where the shades were wholly covered, 12 and showed through like a straw in glass. Some are lying down; some are upright, this one with his head, and that with his soles uppermost; 15 another, like a bow, bends his face to his feet. When we had gone so far forward that it pleased my Master to show me 18 the creature which had the fair semblance, he took himself from before me and made me stop, saying: “Lo Dis! and lo the place 21 where it is needful that thou arm thyself with fortitude!” How frozen and faint I then became, ask it not, Reader, for I do not write it, 24 because all speech would be little. I did not die, and did not remain alive: think now for thyself, if thou hast a grain of wit, 27 what I became, deprived of one and the other.
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