26
The Divine Comedy
Of qualities I saw the good collector,
Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus saw I, 140
Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca,
Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy,
Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna,
Averroes, who the great Comment made.
I cannot all of them portray in full, 145
Because so drives me onward the long theme,
That many times the word comes short of fact.
The sixfold company in two divides;
Another way my sapient Guide conducts me
Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles; 150
And to a place I come where nothing shines.
