And lo! coming toward us in a boat, an old man, white with
ancient hair, crying, "Woe to you, wicked souls! hope not ever to
see Heaven! I come to carry you to the other bank, into eternal
darkness, to heat and frost. And thou who art there, living soul,
depart from these that are dead." But when he saw that I did not
depart, he said, "By another way, by other ports thou shalt come
to the shore, not here, for passage; it behoves that a lighter
bark bear thee."[1]

[1] The boat that bears the souls to Purgatory. Charon recognizes
that Dante is not among the damned.


And my Leader to him, "Charon, vex not thyself, it is thus willed
there where is power to do that which is willed; and farther ask
not." Then the fleecy cheeks were quiet of the pilot of the livid
marsh, who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.

But those souls, who were weary and naked, changed color, and
gnashed their teeth soon as they heard his cruel words. They
blasphemed God and their parents, the human race, the place, the
time and the seed of their sowing and of their birth. Then,
bitterly weeping, they drew back all of them together to the evil
bank, that waits for every man who fears not God. Charon the
demon, with eyes of glowing coal, beckoning them, collects them
all; he beats with his oar whoever lingers.

As in autumn the leaves fall off one after the other, till the
bough sees all its spoils upon the earth, in like wise the evil