Portal:Poetry/Selected image/19

“ As in the Arsenal of the Venetians

Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch
To smear their unsound vessels o'er again,

For sail they cannot; and instead thereof
One makes his vessel new, and one recaulks
The ribs of that which many a voyage has made;

One hammers at the prow, one at the stern,
This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists,
Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen

”

Inferno, Dante, verso 21, translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

image credit: M0tty