It was in the year 1300, at Easter time, when Dante began his strange and eventful pilgrimage, "midway in this our mortal life," he says in the first line of the poem, that is when he himself was thirty-five years old. He finds himself lost in a dense forest, not knowing how he came there, and after wandering for some time, reaches the foot of a lofty mountain, whose top is lighted by the rays of the morning sun. He is about to make his way thither, when he is stopped by the appearance, one after the other, of three terrible beasts, a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. He falls back in terror to the forest, when suddenly he sees a figure advancing toward him and learns that this is Vergil, who has been sent by Beatrice (now in heaven) to lead her lover from the wood of sin to salvation. To do this it will be necessary for Dante to pass through the infernal world, then up the craggy heights of purgatory to the earthly paradise, where Beatrice herself will take charge of him and lead him from heaven to heaven, even to the presence of God Himself. Dante's courage and confidence fail at this prospect--he is not Æneas or St. Paul, he says, to undertake such supernatural journeys--but when Vergil tells him that Beatrice herself has sent him, Dante expresses his willingness to undertake the difficult and awe-inspiring task. It is nightfall when they reach the gate of hell, over which is written the dread inscription: "Through me you pass into the city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye: Justice the founder of my fabric moved: To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Entering in they are met with the sound of sighs, moans, and lamentations, mingled with curses hoarse and deep, and the beating of hands, all making a hideous din in the starless air, in which a long train of spirits is whirled about hither and thither stung by wasps and hornets. These spirits are the souls of those ignoble ones who were neither for God nor against him. "The wretched souls of those, who lived Without or praise or blame, with that ill band Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved, Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them forth Not to impair his luster; nor the depth Of Hell receives them, lest the accursed tribe Should glory thence with exultation vain."