This much will I have manifest to you;
Provided that my conscience do not chide me,
For whatsoever Fortune I am ready.
Such hansel is not new unto mine ears;
Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around 95
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."
Nor speaking less on that account, I go 100
With Ser Brunetto, and I ask who are
His most known and most eminent companions.
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. 105
Know then, 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.
Priscian goes yonder with that wretched crowd,
And Francis of Accorso; and thou hadst seen there, 110
If thou hadst had a hankering for such scurf,
That one, who by the Servant of the Servants
From Arno was transferred to Bacchiglione,
Where he has left his sin-excited nerves.
Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/112
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92
The Divine Comedy
