"Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

--_From Longfellow's translation._]

A tumult on a sigh (from the first phrase) rises again and again in
gusts. In a violent paroxysm we hear the doom of the monotone in lowest
horns. The fateful phrases are ringing about, while pervading all is
the hope-destroying blast of the brass. But the storm-centre is the
sighing motive which now enters on a quicker spur of passionate stride
(_Allegro frenetico, quasi doppio movimento_). In its winding

[Music: _Alla breve_
_Allegro frenetico (quasi doppio movimento)_
(Theme in violins and cellos)
(Woodwind and violas)]

sequences it sings a new song in more regular pace. The tempest grows
wilder and more masterful, still following the lines of the song, rising
to towering height. And now in the strains, slow and faster, sounds the
sigh above and below, all in a madrigal of woe. The whole is surmounted
by a big descending phrase, articulate almost in its grim dogma, as it
runs into the line of the first legend in full tumult of gloom. It is
followed by the doom slowly proclaimed in thundering tones of the brass,
in midst of a tempest of surging harmonies. Only it is all more fully
and poignantly stressed than before, with long, resonant echoes of the
stentorian tones of lowest brass.