The Falsifiers — Canto XXIX

Canto 29 of Inferno by Dante Alighieri

The many people and the divers wounds These eyes of mine had so inebriated, That they were wishful to stand still and weep; But Virgil said to me: "What dost thou still gaze at? Why is thy sight still riveted down there Among the mournful, mutilated shades? Thou hast not done so at the other Bolgias; Consider, if to count them thou believest, That two-and-twenty miles the valley winds.

And already is the moon beneath our feet; The time is short that now to us is granted, And more is to be seen than what thou seest."

"If thou hadst," I thereupon made answer, "Attended to the cause for which I looked, Perhaps a longer stay thou wouldst have pardoned." Meanwhile my Guide departed, and behind him I went, already making my reply, And superadding: "In that cavern where I held mine eyes with such attention fixed, I think a spirit of my blood laments The sin which costs so much there down below."