The Divine Comedy

By Dante Alighieri QUOTATION: “Medusa, come, we’ll turn him into stone,” they shouted all together glaring down, “how wrong we were to let off Theseus lightly!”
ATTRIBUTION: Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Italian poet. “Inferno,” cto. 9, l. 52-4, The Divine Comedy (c. 1307-1321), trans. by Mark Musa (1971).

QUOTATION: There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, as sand eddies in a whirlwind.
ATTRIBUTION: Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Italian poet. “Inferno,” cto. 3, l. 22, The Divine Comedy (1321).

QUOTATION: O power of fantasy that steals our minds from things outside, to leave us unaware, although a thousand trumpets may blow loud—what stirs you if the senses show you nothing? Light stirs you, formed in Heaven, by itself, or by His will Who sends it down to us.
ATTRIBUTION: Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Italian poet. “Purgatory,” cto. 17, l. 13-18, The Divine Comedy (c. 1307-1321), trans. by Mark Musa (1981).

QUOTATION: If anyone should want to know my name, I am called Leah. And I spend all my time weaving garlands of flowers with my fair hands, to please me when I stand before the mirror; my sister Rachel sits all the day long before her own, and never moves away. She loves to contemplate her lovely eyes; I love to use my hands to adorn myself: her joy is in reflection, mine in act.
ATTRIBUTION: Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Italian poet. “Purgatory,” cto. 27, l. 100-8, The Divine Comedy (c. 1307-1321), trans. by Mark Musa (1981).

QUOTATION: O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is a little fault!
ATTRIBUTION: Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Italian poet. “Purgatory,” cto. 3, The Divine Comedy (completed 1321).

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