intimates the circle into which each is to be plunged by the number of
folds into which he casts his tail round about him. Minos admonished
Dante to beware how he entered unbidden, and warned him against his
conductor; but Virgil sharply rebuked the judge, and bade him not set
his will against the will that was power.

The pilgrims then descended through hell-mouth, till they came to a
place dark as pitch, that bellowed with furious cross-winds, like a sea
in a tempest. It was the first place of torment, and the habitation of
carnal sinners. The winds, full of stifled voices, buffeted the souls
for ever, whirling them away to and fro, and dashing them against one
another. Whenever it seized them for that purpose, the wailing and the
shrieking was loudest, crying out against the Divine Power. Sometimes a
whole multitude came driven in a body like starlings before the wind,
now hither and thither, now up, now down; sometimes they went in a line
like cranes, when a company of those birds is beheld sailing along in
the air, uttering its dolorous clangs.

Dante, seeing a group of them advancing, inquired of Virgil who they
were. "Who are these," said he, "coming hither, scourged in the blackest
part of the hurricane?"

"She at the head of them," said Virgil, "was empress over many nations.
So foul grew her heart with lust, that she ordained license to be law,
to the end that herself might be held blameless. She is Semiramis, of
whom it is said that she gave suck to Ninus, and espoused him. Leading
the multitude next to her is Dido, she that slew herself for love, and
broke faith to the ashes of Sichaeus; and she that follows with the next
is the luxurious woman, Cleopatra."