"When I awoke before the morn, that day, I heard my little sons, who shared my cell, For bread, even in their slumber, moaning pray; Hard art thou, if unmoved thou hearest me tell The message that my heart had guessed too well! If this thou feel not, what can make thee feel? And when we all were risen, the hour befell At which was brought to us the morning meal, Yet each one doubted sore what might their dreams reveal. And as the locking of the gate I heard Beneath that terrible tower, I gazed alone Into my children's faces, without a word. I wept not, for within I turned to stone; But saw that they were weeping every one; 'Twas then my darling little Anselm cried: 'You look so, father! Say, what have they done?' Still not a tear I shed, nor word replied That day, nor till that night in next day's dawning died. And as there shot into this prison drear A little sunbeam, by whose light I caught My look upon four faces mirrored clear; Both of my hands I bit, by grief o'erwrought. Then suddenly they rose as if they thought I did it hungering; 'Less our misery,' They cried, 'Should'st thou on us feed, who are nought But creatures vested in our flesh by thee: Then strip away the weeds that still thine own must be.' It calmed me to make them feel less their fate; Two days we spent in silence all forlorn; Earth, Earth, oh wherefore wert thou obdurate, And would'st not open! On the following morn Gaddo, before my face, from life was torn! 'Can you not help me, father?' first he cried, And perished; then, I saw the younger born, Three, one by one, fall ere the sixth day sped-- Plainly as you see me, and this accursed head. 'Already blind, I fondly grope my way To them, and for three days their names I call After their death; then famine found its prey And did what sorrow could not.' This was all He said." (XXXIII, 35.) And now we come with the poets to the lowest depths of Hell, where we see imprisoned in ice Lucifer, huge and hideous. As we gaze on mankind's enemy, an archangel fallen and punished for sin, the words of Isaias come to mind: "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, who did'st rise in the morning! How art thou fallen to the earth, that did'st wound the nations. And thou saidst within thy heart, 'I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God--I will be like the most High. But yet thou shalt be brought down to Hell, into the very depth of the pit." (Is., XIV, 12.) Let us see how Dante puts Lucifer "into the very depth of the pit."