Even as the Flemings, 'twixt Cadsand and Bruges,
  Fearing the flood that tow'rds them hurls itself,
  Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight;

And as the Paduans along the Brenta,
  To guard their villas and their villages,
  Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat;

Now were we from the forest so remote,
  I could not have discovered where it was,
  Even if backward I had turned myself,

When we a company of souls encountered,
  Who came beside the dike, and every one
  Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont 

Thus scrutinised by such a family,
  By some one I was recognised, who seized
  My garment's hem, and cried out, "What a marvel!"

And I, when he stretched forth his arm to me,
  On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes,
  That the scorched countenance prevented not

And he: "May't not displease thee, O my son,
  If a brief space with thee Brunetto Latini
  Backward return and let the trail go on."

I said to him: "With all my power I ask it;
  And if you wish me to sit down with you,
  I will, if he please, for I go with him."

Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come,
  And afterward will I rejoin my band,
  Which goes lamenting its eternal doom."

I did not dare to go down from the road
  Level to walk with him; but my head bowed
  I held as one who goeth reverently.

"Up there above us in the life serene,"
  I answered him, "I lost me in a valley,
  Or ever yet my age had been completed.

But yestermorn I turned my back upon it;
  This one appeared to me, returning thither,
  And homeward leadeth me along this road."

And if I had not died so prematurely,
  Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee,
  I would have given thee comfort in the work.

But that ungrateful and malignant people,
  Which of old time from Fesole descended,
  And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,

Old rumour in the world proclaims them blind;
  A people avaricious, envious, proud;
Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee.

Thy fortune so much honour doth reserve thee,
  One party and the other shall be hungry
  For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.

In which may yet revive the consecrated
  Seed of those Romans, who remained there when
  The nest of such great malice it became."

"If my entreaty wholly were fulfilled,"
  Replied I to him, "not yet would you be
  In banishment from human nature placed;

You taught me how a man becomes eternal;
  And how much I am grateful, while I live
  Behoves that in my language be discerned.

What you narrate of my career I write,
  And keep it to be glossed with other text
  By a Lady who can do it, if I reach her.

Such handsel is not new unto mine ears;
  Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around
  As it may please her, and the churl his mattock."

My Master thereupon on his right cheek
  Did backward turn himself, and looked at me;
  Then said: "He listeneth well who noteth it."

And he to me: "To know of some is well;
  Of others it were laudable to be silent,
  For short would be the time for so much speech.

Know them in sum, that all of them were clerks,
  And men of letters great and of great fame,
  In the world tainted with the selfsame sin. 

That one, who by the Servant of the Servants
  From Arno was transferred to Bacchiglione,
  Where he has left his sin-excited nerves.

More would I say, but coming and discoursing
  Can be no longer; for that I behold
  New smoke uprising yonder from the sand.

Then he turned round, and seemed to be of those
  Who at Verona run for the Green Mantle
  Across the plain; and seemed to be among them

The one who wins, and not the one who loses.