pidanioe

	from INFERNO - Canto 26	from THE INFERNO - Canto 26
	Dante Alighieri	tr. Leonard Cottrell
	Io e ’ compagni eravam vecchi e tardi quando venimmo a quella foce stretta dov’Ercule segnò li suoi riguardi, acciò che l’uom più oltre non si metta: da la man destra mi lasciai Sibilia, da l’altra già m’avea lasciata Setta. "O frati", dissi "che per cento milia perigli siete giunti a l’occidente, a questa tanto picciola vigilia d’i nostri sensi ch’è del rimanente, non vogliate negar l’esperienza, di retro al sol, del mondo sanza gente. Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza".	Though I and comrades now were old and slow we hauled till nightfall for the narrow sound where Hercules had shown what not to do by putting bounds for men to stay behind. At dawn the starboard lookout made Seville, and Setta marked the straights on t'other hand. "Brothers," I shouted, "who have had the will to come through danger, and have reached the west! our time awake is brief from now until the senses die, and so I say we test the sun's own motion and do not forego the worlds beyond, unknown and peopleless. Think of the roots from which you sprang, and show that you are human, not unconscious brutes but made to follow virtue, and to know."