[220] _Thundering sound_: In a state of unconsciousness, Dante, he knows not how, has been conveyed across Acheron, and is awakened by what seems like the thunder-peal following the lightning-flash which made him insensible. He now stands on the brink of Inferno, where the sounds peculiar to each region of it converge and are reverberated from its rim. These sounds are not again to be heard by him except in their proper localities. No sooner does he actually pass into the First Circle than he hears only sighs.--As regards the topography of Inferno, it is enough, as yet, to note that it consists of a cavity extending from the surface to the centre of the earth; narrowing to its base, and with many circular ledges or terraces, of great width in the case of the upper ones, running round its wall--that is, round the sides of the pit. Each terrace or circle is thus less in circumference than the one above it. From one circle to the next there slopes a bank of more or less height and steepness. Down the bank which falls to the comparatively flat ground of the First Circle they are now about to pass.--To put it otherwise, the Inferno is an inverted hollow cone. [221] _Pity_: The pity felt by Virgil has reference only to those in the circle they are about to enter, which is his own. See also _Purg._ iii. 43. [222] _Wouldst thou, etc._: He will not have Dante form a false opinion of the character of those condemned to the circle which is his own. [223] _Part_: _parte_, altered by some editors into _porta_; but though baptism is technically described as the gate of the sacraments, it never is as the gate of the faith. A tenet of Dante's faith was that all the unbaptized are lost. He had no choice in the matter. [224] _Limbo_: Border, or borderland. Dante makes the First Circle consist of the two limbos of Thomas Aquinas: that of unbaptized infants, _limbus puerorum_, and that of the fathers of the old covenant, _limbus sanctorum patrum_. But the second he finds is now inhabited only by the virtuous heathen. [225] _Sir_--_Master_: As a delicate means of expressing sympathy, Dante redoubles his courtesy to Virgil. [226] _Hidden drift_: to find out, at first hand as it were, if the article in the creed is true which relates to the Descent into Hell; and, perhaps, to learn if when Christ descended He delivered none of the virtuous heathen. [227] _Lately_: Virgil died about half a century before the crucifixion. [228] _A Potentate_: The name of Christ is not mentioned in the _Inferno_. [229] _A hemisphere, etc._: An elaborate way of saying that part of the limbo was clearly lit. The flame is symbolical of the light of genius, or of virtue; both in Dante's eyes being modes of worth. [230] _Wins grace, etc._: The thirst for fame was one keenly felt and openly confessed by Dante. See, _e.g._ _De Monarchia_, i. 1. In this he anticipated the humanists of the following century. Here we find that to be famous on earth helps the case of disembodied souls.