Inferno: Canto XVI
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Dante Alighieri and Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
He said to me: “Soon there will upward come What I await; and what thy thought is dreaming Must soon reveal itself unto thy sight.”
Aye to that truth which has the face of falsehood, A man should close his lips as far as may be, Because without his fault it causes shame;
But here I cannot; and, Reader, by the notes Of this my Comedy to thee I swear, So may they not be void of lasting favour,
Athwart that dense and darksome atmosphere I saw a figure swimming upward come, Marvellous unto every steadfast heart,
Even as he returns who goeth down Sometimes to clear an anchor, which has grappled Reef, or aught else that in the sea is hidden,
Who upward stretches, and draws in his feet.