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Ray's avatar

they all are huge problems requiring a very reliable guillotine

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Stegiel's avatar

Maestro, che è quel ch’i’ odo?

e che gent’è che par nel duol sì vinta?”.

Ed elli a me: “Questo misero modo

tegnon l’anime triste di coloro

che visser sanza ‘nfamia e sanza lodo.

Mischiate sono a quel cattivo coro

de li angeli che non furon ribelli

né fur fedeli a Dio, ma per sé fuoro.

Caccianli i ciel per non esser men belli,

né lo profondo inferno li riceve,

ch’alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d’elli”.

E io: “Maestro, che è tanto greve

a lor, che lamentar li fa sì forte?”.

Rispuose: “Dicerolti molto breve.

Questi non hanno speranza di morte

e la lor cieca vita è tanto bassa,

che ‘nvidiosi son d’ogne altra sorte.

Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa;

misericordia e giustizia li sdegna:

non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa”.

“Master, what is it that I hear? Who are

those people so defeated by their pain?”

And he to me: “This miserable way

is taken by the sorry souls of those

who lived without disgrace and without praise.

They now commingle with the coward angels,

the company of those who were not rebels

nor faithful to their God, but stood apart.

The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened,

have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them –

even the wicked cannot glory in them.”

And I: “What is it, master, that oppresses

these souls, compelling them to wail so loud?”

He answered: “I shall tell you in few words.

Those who are here can place no hope in death,

and their blind life is so abject that they

are envious of every other fate.

The world will let no fame of theirs endure;

both justice and compassion must disdain them;

let us not talk of them, but look and pass.”

—Dante Alighieri, Inferno, canto iii (ca. 1317)(C. Langdon transl. 1918)

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