We came into a meadow of fresh verdure.
People were there with solemn eyes and slow, Of great authority in their countenance;
They spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.
Thus we withdrew ourselves upon one side Into an opening luminous and lofty, So that they all of them were visible.
There opposite, upon the green enamel, Were pointed out to me the mighty spirits, Whom to have seen I feel myself exalted.
I saw Electra with companions many, 'Mongst whom I knew both Hector and Aeneas, Caesar in armour with gerfalcon eyes;
I saw Camilla and Penthesilea On the other side, and saw the King Latinus, Who with Lavinia his daughter sat;
I saw that Brutus who drove Tarquin forth, Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia, And saw alone, apart, the Saladin.
When I had lifted up my brows a little, The Master I beheld of those who know, Sit with his philosophic family.
All gaze upon him, and all do him honour.
There I beheld both Socrates and Plato, Who nearer him before the others stand;
Democritus, who puts the world on chance, Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus;
Of qualities I saw the good collector, Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus saw I, Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca, Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy, Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna, Averroes, who the great Comment made.
I cannot all of them pourtray in full, Because so drives me onward the long theme, That many times the word comes short of fact.
The sixfold company in two divides;
Another way my sapient Guide conducts me Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles;
And to a place I come where nothing shines.