Dore – Inferno, Canto 25 – Agnello being transformed to a serpent
If, dear Reader, what I tell you throws you into disbelief, it’s no surprise — I scarcely credit it myself, God knows,
and I was there.
[Se tu se’ or, lettore, a creder lento ciò ch’io dirò, non sarà maraviglia, ché io che ’l vidi, a pena il mi consento.]
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian poet The Divine Comedy [Divina Commedia], Book 1 “Inferno,” Canto 25, l. 46ff (25.46-48) (1309) [tr. Carson (2002)]
(Source)
Dante is gobsmacked over a serpent/lizard biting a thief, and each of their bodies changing into the other. He spends the rest of the canto in detailed description of the transformation.
If, Reader, you are tardy to believe
What I shall say, it will no wonder raise;
For I who saw it scarcely give assent.
[tr. Rogers (1782), l. 42ff]
Nor marvel, ye that hear the wondrous tale!
If doubts, arising oft, your minds assail! Those eyes, that saw them, scarce believ'd the sight.
[tr. Boyd (1802), st. 8]
O reader! now
Thou be not apt to credit what I tell,
No marvel; for myself do scarce allow
The witness of mine eyes.
[tr. Cary (1814)]
If, reader, thou should'st tardily receive What now I tell, it might not much surprise, When I, who saw it, scarce myself believe.
[tr. Dayman (1843)]
If thou art now, O Reader, slow to credit what I have to tell, it will be no wonder: for I who saw it, scare allow it to myself.
[tr. Carlyle (1849)]
And if thou, reader, to believe art slow, What I shall tell, 'twill be by no means strange, For I who saw it must suspect the change.
[tr. Bannerman (1850)]
If, reader, thou art backward to believe What I shall say, no wonder thou shouldst doubt, For I myself who saw can scarce believe.
[tr. Johnston (1867)]
If thou art, Reader, slow now to believe What I shall say, it will no marvel be, For I who saw it hardly can admit it.
[tr. Longfellow (1867)]
If thou art now, reader, slow to believe that which I am going to say, it will be no marvel, for I who saw it hardly allow it to myself.
[tr. Butler (1885)]
If now, O reader, thou shouldst scarce be bent To trust my speech no marvel it will be, Since I who saw it scarcely can consent.
[tr. Minchin (1885)]
If thou art now, Reader, slow to credit that which I shall tell, it will not be a marvel, for I who saw it hardly admit it to myself.
[tr. Norton (1892)]
If, Reader, thou art now slow to believe what I shall tell thee, it were no thing to wonder at, for I that saw it can scarce admit its truth.
[tr. Sullivan (1893)]
If thou art slow, now, reader, at believing What I shall say, it will not be a marvel, For I, who saw it, scarcely do accept it.
[tr. Griffith (1908)]
If, reader, thou art now slow to credit what I shall tell, it will be no wonder, for I who saw it scarcely admit it to myself.
[tr. Sinclair (1939)]
If thou art slow of faith, thou who dost read What I shall tell, 'tis nothing for surprise. Since half I doubt, I who witnessed it indeed.
[tr. Binyon (1943)]
Reader, if thou discredit what is here Set down, no wonder; for I hesitate Myself, who saw it all as clear as clear.
[tr. Sayers (1949)]
Reader, should you doubt what next I tell, it will be no wonder, for though I saw it happen, I can scarce believe it possible, even in Hell.
[tr. Ciardi (1954)]
If, reader, you are now slow to credit that which I shall tell, it will be no wonder, for I who saw it do scarcely admit it to myself.
[tr. Singleton (1970)]
Now if, my reader, you should hesitate to believe what I shall say, there's little wonder, for I, the witness, scarcely can believe it.
[tr. Musa (1971)]
If, reader, you are slow now to believe what I shall tell, that is no cause for wonder, for I who saw it hardly can accept it.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1980)]
If you now, reader, are slow to believe What I shall tell you, it will be no wonder For I who saw it can scarcely credit it!
[tr. Sisson (1981)]
Reader, if you are slow To credit what I tell you next, it should
Be little wonder, for I who saw it know
That I myself can hardly acknowledge it
[tr. Pinsky (1994), l. 44ff]
If now, reader, you are slow to believe what I say, that will be no marvel, for I, who saw it, hardly allow it.
[tr. Durling (1996)]
Reader, if you are slow to credit, now, what I have to tell, it will be no wonder, since I who saw it, scarcely credit it myself.
[tr. Kline (2002)]
If you are slow, my reader, to receive, in faith, what I'll say now -- no miracle. I saw it all, and yet can scarce believe.
[tr. Kirkpatrick (2006)]
If, reader, you are slow to credit what I'm about to tell you, it's no wonder: I saw it, and I myself can scarce believe it.
[tr. Hollander/Hollander (2007)]
Now, readers all,
If you cannot quite believe my story, I find it hard, and I'm the one who saw it.
[tr. Raffel (2010)]
If you are slow
To credit, reader, what I tell you now,
No wonder. I, who saw it to be so,
Scarcely believe it still.
[tr. James (2013)]
The biographer does not trust his witnesses, living or dead. He may drip with the milk of human kindness, believe everything that his wife and his friends and his children tell him, enjoy his neighbors and embrace the universe — but in the workshop he must be as ruthless as a board meeting smelling out embezzlement, as suspicious as a secret agent riding the Simplon-Orient Express, as cold-eyed as a pawnbroker viewing a leaky concertina. With no respect for human dignity, he plays off his witnesses one against the other, snoops for additional information to confront them with, probes their prejudices and their pride, checks their reliability against their self-interest, thinks the worst until he is permitted to think better.
Paul Murray Kendall (1911-1973) American academic and historian
“Walking the Boundaries,” The Art of Biography (1965)
(Source)
The rule which should guide us in such cases is simple and obvious enough: that the aggregate testimony of our neighbours is subject to the same conditions as the testimony of any one of them. Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it. However many nations and generations of men are brought into the witness-box, they cannot testify to anything which they do not know. Every man who has accepted the statement from somebody else, without himself testing and verifying it, is out of court; his word is worth nothing at all. And when we get back at last to the true birth and beginning of the statement, two serious questions must be disposed of in regard to him who first made it: was he mistaken in thinking that he knew about this matter, or was he lying?
William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Ethics of Belief,” Part 2 “The Weight of Authority,” Contemporary Review (Jan 1877)
(Source)
But the most interesting — although horrible — sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where there were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda”.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Letter to George C. Marshall (15 Apr 1945)
Referring to the Ohrdruf concentration camp, part of the Buchenwald network of camps. It was the first camp liberated by US troops.
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