Never hope to see the sky
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Non isperate mai veder lo cielo: i’ vegno per menarvi a l’ altra riva ne le tenebre etterne, in caldo e ’n gelo.
Never hope to see the sky again: I come to carry you to the other shore, into the eternal darkness, in heat and in frost.
Charon warns them never to hope to see heaven again: he comes to carry them to the far shore, into eternal darkness, heat, and frost.
Charon repeats the gate's sentence in his own harsh voice: <i>Non isperate mai veder lo cielo</i> — never hope to see heaven. Hope, forbidden on the lintel, is forbidden again at the water. The two warnings frame the whole approach: to enter is to give hope up twice.
And he names the destination in one merciless pairing, <i>in caldo e 'n gelo</i>, in heat and in frost. Hell holds both extremes, and the souls will know each. The far shore is not one torment but the sum of them, wrapped in <i>tenebre etterne</i>, an eternal dark with no sky above it and no end ahead.
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