I Felt For The Tormented Whirlwinds Damned

Those Ancients Who In Poetry Presented The Golden Age, Who Sang Its Happy State, Perhaps, In Their Parnassus, Dreamt This Place. Here, Mankind's Root Was Innocent; And Here Were Every Fruit And Never-ending Spring; These Streams--the Nectar Of Which Poets Sing.

But The Stars That Marked Our Starting Fall Away. We Must Go Deeper Into Greater Pain, For It Is Not Permitted That We Stay.

…all Things Created Have An Order In Themselves, And This Begets The Form That Lets The Universe Resemble God.

The Purpose Of The Whole [the Comedy] And Of This Portion [the Paradiso] Is To Remove Those Who Are Living In This Life From The State Of Wretchedness, And To Lead Them To The State Of Blessedness.

Into The Eternal Darkness, Into Fire And Into Ice.