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, t o 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.
Dante AlighieriI felt for the tormented whirlwinds Damned for their carnal sins Committed when they let their passions rule their reason.
Dante AlighieriAs little flowers, which the chill of night has bent and huddled, when the white sun strikes, grow straight and open fully on their stems, so did I, too, with my exhausted force.
Dante AlighieriI found myself within a forest dark, for the straightfoward pathway had been lost. Ah me! How hard a thing is to say, what was this forest savage, rough, and stern, which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more.
Dante AlighieriThere 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, and sand eddies in a whirlwind.
Dante Alighieri