[Intro – Slow, ominous: low strings, timpani rolls, distant choir, building dread] Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark… The straight way lost. [Verse 1 – Narrative build: swirling strings & woodwinds, Acheron motif] In shadowed wood where beasts of fear appear, The leopard, lion, she-wolf drawing near. Then Virgil came, the poet’s guiding shade, To lead me past the gate where hope is laid. “Through me the way into the suffering city, Through me the way to eternal pain…” Charon’s boat on Acheron’s grim shore, The dead in endless line forevermore. Limbo sighs with unbaptized souls of light, Lust in howling winds that never cease their flight. Gluttons under Cerberus’ triple jaws, Rain and filth their cold, eternal cause. [Chorus – Full orchestra & choir, powerful and relentless] Abandon all hope, ye who enter here! *Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’entrate!* Nine circles deep through fire, ice, and fear, Inferno’s justice – fair and intricate! Dante’s descent, through Hell’s abyssal night, Guided by reason toward the distant light! [Verse 2 – Darker, heavier: brass enters, timpani strikes] Greed rolls weights in clashing, futile strife, Wrathful choke in Styx’s muddy fight. Heresy sealed in tombs of flaming stone, Violence boils in Phlegethon’s blood-red zone. Suicides as thorny trees in pain, Blasphemers scorched on burning desert plain. [Chorus – Even grander, with choir harmony] [Verse 3 – Intensifying: woodwinds wail, full brass, percussion chaos] Malebolge’s pits of fraud and lies, Flatterers drowned in filth, thieves wrapped in serpent guise. Demons with pitchforks herd the souls below, Giants guard the frozen lake of woe. Cocytus traps the traitors in its ice, Family, country, lords – all pay the price. [Bridge – Chilling slowdown: low brass, eerie strings, piano solo for Dante, then massive build] At the center, Lucifer, three-faced and vast, Bat wings beating cold eternal blast. Chewing Brutus, Cassius, Judas in his maw, The traitors’ lord, the source of every flaw. We climb his shaggy side, reverse through gravity’s hold, Emerging from the depths to light untold… [Final Chorus – Triumphant, full choir & orchestra at maximum, then decrescendo] Abandon all hope… yet hope is born anew! From deepest dark, redemption calls to you! Inferno’s fire refines the pilgrim’s soul, Onward to Purgatory, making broken whole! Dante’s Inferno, tale forever told, In verse, in music, in symphony of old! [Outro – Softening: celesta & harp glisten, strings rise gently to hopeful silence] *E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle…* And so we came forth to see the stars again.
