Here Dante recognizes the soul of him who made the "great refusal," recalling thus the strange story of the aged hermit, Peter Murrone, who after fifty-five years and more of solitary life in a cave high up among the Abruzzi Mountains, was forced to ascend the papal throne, and who after a short period of ineffectual reign under the name of Celestine V., resigned, thus making way for Boniface VIII., Dante's bitter enemy. Vergil's contemptuous remark concerning these souls, "Speak not of them, but look and pass them by," has become proverbial. Soon after this the two poets reach the shores of the river Acheron, where Charon, the infernal boatman, is busy ferrying the souls of the damned to the other side. He refuses to take Dante in his boat, and the latter falls into a swoon, and being aroused by a clap of thunder, finds himself on the other side. How he was carried over we are not told. The wanderers are now in limbo or the first circle of hell, in which are contained the souls of unbaptized children and of the great and good of the pagan world, especially the poets and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, who, having lived before the coming of Christ, had through no fault of their own died without faith in Him who alone can save. These souls are not punished by physical pain, as is the case with those in the following circles, but nourishing forever a desire which they have no hope of ever having satisfied, they pass the endless years of eternity in gentle melancholy. Here Dante meets the spirits of Homer, Ovid, Horace, and Lucan, who treat him kindly and make him one of the band, thus consecrating him as a great poet. "When they together short discourse had held, They turned to me, with salutation kind Beckoning me; at the which my master smiled: Nor was this all; but greater honor still They gave me, for they made me of their tribe; And I was sixth amid so learn'd a band. "Far as the luminous beacon on we passed, Speaking of matters, then befitting well To speak, now fitter left untold. At foot Of a magnificent castle we arrived, Seven times with lofty walls begirt, and round Defended by a pleasant stream. O'er this As o'er dry land we passed. Next, through seven gates, I with those sages entered, and we came Into a mead with lively verdure fresh. "There dwelt a race, who slow their eyes around Majestically moved, and in their port Bore eminent authority: they spake Seldom, but all their words were tuneful sweet. "We to one side retired, into a place Open and bright and lofty, whence each one Stood manifest to view. Incontinent, There on the green enamel of the plain Were shown me the great spirits, by whose sight I am exalted in my own esteem."