When I had journeyed half of our life's way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray.

I am made of God, through his Grace. Such that your misery touches me not, Nor does flame of that burning assail me.

They had their faces twisted toward their haunches and found it necessary to walk backward, because they could not see ahead of them. ...And since he wanted so to see ahead, he looks behind and walks a backward path.

In His will, our peace.

Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age, who sang its happy state, perhaps, in their Parnassus, dreamt this place. Here, mankind's root was innocent; and here were every fruit and never-ending spring; these streams--the nectar of which poets sing.

There are souls beneath that water. Fixed in slimethey speak their piece, end it, and start again:'Sullen were we in the air made sweet by the Sun;in the glory of his shining our hearts poureda bitter smoke. Sullen were we begun;sullen we lie forever in this ditch.'This litany they gargle in their throatsas if they sand, but lacked the words and pitch.

...ma gia volgena il mio disio e'l velle si come rota ch'igualmente e mossa, l'amor che move: i sole e l'altre stelle ...as a wheel turns smoothtly, free from jars, my will and my desire were turned by love, The love that moves the sun and the other stars.