The day that man allows true love to appear, those things which are well made will fall into cofusion and will overturn everything we believe to be right and true.
Open your mind to what I shall disclose, and hold it fast within you; he who hears, but does not hold what he has heard, learns nothing. Beatrice - Canto V 40-42
If i thought i was replying to someone who would every return to the world, this flame would cease it's flickering. But since no one has returned from these depths alive, if what I've heard is true, I will answer you without fear of infamy.
Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. How hard it is to tell what it was like, this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn (the thought of it brings back all my old fears), a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer. But if I would show the good that came of it I must talk about things other than the good.
Sta come torre ferma, che non crolla
Giammai la cima per soffiar de' venti.
Be steadfast as a tower that doth not bend its stately summit to the tempest's shock.
To get back up to the shining world from there My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel, And Following its path, we took no care To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far, through a round aperture I saw appear Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears, Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.
I saw a point that shone with light so keen, the eye that sees it cannot bear its blazing; the star that is for us the smallest one would seem a moon if placed beside this point.