along by the aforesaid strife. Wherefore I said, "Master, who are
those folk whom the black air so castigates?" "The first of these
of whom thou wishest to have knowledge," said he to me then, "was
empress of many tongues. To the vice of luxury was she so
abandoned that lust she made licit in her law, to take away the
blame she had incurred. She is Semiramis, of whom it is read that
she succeeded Ninus and had been his spouse; she held the land
which the Soldan rules. That other is she who, for love, killed
herself, and broke faith to the ashes of Sichaeus. Next is
Cleopatra, the luxurious. See Helen, for whom so long a time of
ill revolved; and see the great Achilles, who at the end fought
with love. See Paris, Tristan,--" and more than a thousand shades
he showed me with his finger, and named them, whom love had
parted from our life.

After I had heard my Teacher name the dames of eld and the
cavaliers, pity overcame me, and I was well nigh bewildered. I
began, "Poet, willingly would I speak with those two that go
together, and seem to be so light upon the wind." And he to me,
"Thou shalt see when they shall be nearer to us, and do thou then
pray them by that love which leads them, and they will come."
Soon as the wind sways them toward us I lifted my voice, "O weary
souls, come speak to us, if One forbid it not."

As doves, called by desire, with wings open and steady, fly
through the air to their sweet nest, borne by their will, these
issued from the troop where Dido is, coming to us through the
malign air, so strong was the compassionate cry.

"O living creature, gracious and benign, that goest through the