"Medusa, come, we'll turn him into stone," they shouted all together glaring down, "how wrong we were to let off Theseus lightly!"

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Inferno," cto. 9, l. 52-4, The Divine Comedy (c. 1307-1321), trans. by Mark Musa (1971). Dante is threatened by the three Furies at the gates of Dis, the Infernal City. Theseus, king of Athens, had tried and failed to carry off Persephone, queen of the classical underworld; he was rescued by Hercules.)

Abandon all hope, you who enter here!

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Inferno," cto. 3, l. 9, The Divine Comedy (1321). Inscription at the entrance to Hell.)

I wept not, so to stone within I grew.

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Inferno," cto. 33, l. 49, The Divine Comedy (1321). Said by Count Ugolino.)

This miserable state is borne by the wretched souls of those who lived without disgrace and without praise.

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Inferno," cto. 3, l. 34, The Divine Comedy (1321). referring to the souls of the Futile (See Dante on disgrace.).)

Let us not speak of them; but look, and pass on.

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Inferno," cto. 3, l. 51, The Divine Comedy (1321). Said by Virgil, of the souls of the Futile in the vestibule to Hell.)

There 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, as sand eddies in a whirlwind.

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Inferno," cto. 3, l. 22, The Divine Comedy (1321).)

Midway along the journey of our life [Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita] I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path.

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Inferno," cto. 1, l. 1-3, The Divine Comedy (c. 1307-1321), trans. by Mark Musa (1971). First lines of the Divine Comedy.)

There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Inferno," cto. 5, l. 121-3, The Divine Comedy (1321). spoken by Francesca da Rimini. This thought appears in Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, bk. 2 (6th century).)

Utterly frozen is this youthful lady,
Even as the snow that lies within the shade;
For she is no more moved than is the stone
By the sweet season which makes warm the hills

(Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. Of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni (l. 7-10). OAEL-2. Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and John Hollander, general eds. (1973) Oxford University Press (Also published as six paperback vols.: Medieval English Literature, J. B. Trapp, ed.; The Literature of Renaissance England, John Hollander and Frank Kermode, eds.; The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Martin Price, ed.; Romantic Poetry and Prose, Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, eds.; Victorian Prose and Poetry, Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom, eds.; Modern British Literature, Frank Kermode and John Hollander, eds.).)

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, to 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 Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet. "Purgatory," cto. 27, l. 100-8, The Divine Comedy (c. 1307-1321), trans. by Mark Musa (1981). Leah and Rachel, of whom Dante dreams on the seventh stair of Purgatory before ascending to the Earthly Paradise, traditionally stood for the active and the contemplative life.)