Inferno: Canto I
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Dante Alighieri and Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
To whom, then, if thou wishest to ascend, A soul shall be for that than I more worthy; With her at my departure I will leave thee;
Because that Emperor, who reigns above, In that I was rebellious to his law, Wills that through me none come into his city.
He governs everywhere, and there he reigns; There is his city and his lofty throne; O happy he whom thereto he elects!”
And I to him: “Poet, I thee entreat, By that same God whom thou didst never know, So that I may escape this woe and worse,
Thou wouldst conduct me there where thou hast said, That I may see the portal of Saint Peter, And those thou makest so disconsolate.”
Then he moved on, and I behind him followed.