ENGLISH
ity ultimately rests in the kiss they exchanged as a symbol of their courage in overtly accepting and manifesting their love in the face of all obstacles.
Inferno (canto V), 51-141 translated by Martina Giambanco
[....] “Maestro, who are those people, whom the black air so castigates?” “The first of those of whom tiding thou wouldst know”, said he then, “the empress was of many languages. To the vice of lust was she so accustomed, that libido made licit in her law, to remove the blame to which she had been led. She is Semiramìs, of whom we read That succeeded Ninus and was his spouse: She held the land which now the Sultan holds. The other is she who killed herself amorous, and broke faith to the ashes of Sichcaeus; next is Cleopatràs the voluptuous. Helen you see, for whom so much a time of guilt rolled by, and see the great Achilles, who fought with love until the end. See Parìs, Tristan”; and more than a thousand shadows he showed me and named me with his finger, whom love from our life had separated. After that I had my doctor heard naming the dames of eld and cavaliers, piety prevailed, and I was almost lost. I began: “Poet, willingly speak would I to those two who go together, and appear indeed upon the wind to be light.” 19
