Dante: Why, God? Why are you doing this?
Virgil: It is not the Lord that brought you to this fate, Dante.
Dante: What are you, shade or living man?
Virgil: Not man, though once I was. I lived under Augustus in the time of the false and lying gods.
Dante: Are you not Virgil, glory of the poets, he who wrote the Aeneid, the treasure of Rome?
Virgil: Why do you seek such woe, Dante?
Dante: I seek only my beloved Beatrice and nothing more, but I cannot open these accursed gates!
Virgil: Have you lost all faith in God, O man? Has the way been so obscured?
