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Who really said it

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

Written by Dante Alighieri c. 1265 – 1321 · Florentine poet, author of the Divine Comedy
Verified Free to reuse

This is a genuine line by Dante — the inscription over the Gate of Hell in the Inferno, Canto III, line 9 (“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate”), written c. 1308–1320. The exact English wording, though, is a translation, and no single canonical version reads precisely this way: H. F. Cary’s 1814 rendering gave “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto III, line 9 (c. 1320): "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate." Popularly rendered "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

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Provenance

The source

Work
The Divine Comedy — Inferno, Canto III, line 9
Original
“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” (Italian)
Written
c. 1308–1320
Translation
Popular English rendering; closest published form is H. F. Cary (1814)

“Before me things create were none, save things / Eternal, and eternal I endure. / All hope abandon ye who enter here.”

The closing lines of the Gate of Hell inscription in H. F. Cary’s 1814 translation. The original Italian ninth line is “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate”; the familiar “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” is a later, smoother rearrangement of renderings like this one.

Canto III: Longfellow, Cary and Norton side by side

How we traced it

  • The line is Inferno, Canto III, line 9 — the last words of the inscription over the Gate of Hell — in Dante’s Divine Comedy, written c. 1308–1320. The original Italian is “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” ↗.
  • The exact English wording is a translation — and matches no single canonical one. H. F. Cary’s 1814 version reads “All hope abandon ye who enter here” ↗; Longfellow (1867) gave “All hope abandon, ye who enter in!” and Norton (1891) “Leave every hope, ye who enter!”
  • The smoothed popular form “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” is a later rearrangement ↗ that became the standard English idiom, not the wording Cary or any single translator actually printed.
Public domain

Dante’s Italian original (c. 1320) has been in the public domain for centuries, and the 19th-century English translations this wording descends from — H. F. Cary (1814), Longfellow (1867), Norton (1891) — are all long out of copyright. The exact popular phrasing “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” is an anonymous rearrangement rather than a modern copyrighted translation, so no live rights attach to it.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Fact-check

The catch: right author, re-worded quote

The attribution to Dante is correct — this really is his line. What almost everyone gets wrong is the wording: the phrasing people quote matches no actual published translation.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” smoothed paraphrase

The famous phrasing is a later rearrangement of the English translations. H. F. Cary’s 1814 version reads “All hope abandon ye who enter here” ↗; Longfellow (1867) gave “All hope abandon, ye who enter in!” and Norton (1891) “Leave every hope, ye who enter!” — none reads exactly the popular form.

“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here” mis-parsed

In this common variant the word “all” is shifted so it seems to modify “ye” (everyone who enters) rather than “hope.” Dante’s “ogne speranza” means “all hope” — it is the hope that is total, not the crowd.

The thought and the line are genuinely Dante’s — Inferno III.9 — but “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” is a popularized English rendering, not the wording of any single canonical translation.

Context

Why it endures

In the Inferno, Dante the pilgrim and his guide Virgil reach the Gate of Hell, which bears a nine-line inscription spoken as if the gate itself were the narrator. The line is its chilling final word — the threshold of no return before the descent through the nine circles.

Because it is a translated line, English has never settled on one wording. The version that won out in popular use, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” is smoother than any of the scholarly renderings — which is exactly why it, rather than Cary’s or Longfellow’s, became the phrase carved onto everything from doorways to memes.

“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.”

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Dante Alighieri (sourced quotations)en.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote's sourced entry giving the original Italian of the line and its place in Inferno, Canto III.
Canto III: three translations side by sidedanteinferno.info

Longfellow, Cary and Norton renderings of the Gate of Hell inscription, showing how each translates line 9.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here — meaning & originphrases.org.uk

Phrase-origin reference tracing the English idiom to Dante via Cary's 1814 translation and noting the modern rewording.
Inferno (Dante)en.wikipedia.org

Encyclopedia overview of the first canticle of the Divine Comedy and the Gate of Hell episode in Canto III.
Dante Alighierien.wikipedia.org

Biography of the poet, his dates, and the composition of the Divine Comedy.

The author

About Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

c. 1265–1321 · Florentine poet, author of the Divine Comedy

Dante Alighieri was a Florentine poet whose three-part Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso), written in the Tuscan vernacular between roughly 1308 and 1320, became the foundational masterwork of Italian literature. Its first canticle, the Inferno, follows the pilgrim and his guide Virgil through the Gate of Hell, whose inscription closes with this line. Dante is traditionally called il Sommo Poeta, “the Supreme Poet.”

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto III, line 9 (c. 1308–1320): “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.” English lines quoted from Henry Francis Cary, trans., The Vision; or, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante Alighieri (London, 1814).

MLA (9th ed.)

Dante Alighieri. The Vision; or, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Henry Francis Cary, 1814.

APA (7th ed.)

Dante Alighieri. (1814). The vision; or, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise of Dante Alighieri (H. F. Cary, Trans.). (Original work published c. 1308–1320)

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-here

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