Eliot's Notes to "The Waste Land" // 1.63

Lines 60-63:

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.

Eliot's Note:

63. Cf. Inferno III, 55-57:

“si lunga tratta
di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.”

Translation of note:

Canto 3, lines 55-57, from James Finn Cotter's translation of the Inferno:

And there, behind it, marched so long a file
Of people, I would never have believed
That death could have undone so many souls.

For more information about the The DIvine Comedy, see the note to the dedication.


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