An old man in a boat
Read the full text in our reader
Ed ecco verso noi venir per nave un vecchio, bianco per antico pelo, gridando: « Guai a voi, anime prave!
And behold, coming toward us by boat, an old man white with ancient hair, shouting: “Woe to you, wicked souls!
Toward them, by boat, comes an old man white with ancient hair, shouting: woe to you, wicked souls!
The <i>ecco</i> — behold — jolts the poem into a new presence. Across the water comes Charon, though Dante withholds the name a moment, giving us first only the sight: <i>un vecchio, bianco per antico pelo</i>, an old man whitened by hair as old as time. He is the ferryman of the classical dead, carried whole into Dante's Christian Hell.
His first word is a curse. <i>Guai a voi, anime prave!</i> — woe to you, wicked souls. Charon does not welcome; he condemns on sight. The old pagan boatman becomes, in Dante's hands, a kind of grim officer of divine wrath, greeting every arrival with the verdict already pronounced.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Inferno 3.82 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the Inferno — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Inferno 3.82 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/dante-inferno/3.82/