Epigraph

For four voices SATB
Performed by Natalie Stein, Mariana Corichi Gomez, Gray Collins, and Theo Trevisan
December 2021, Princeton, NJ

Text:
Inferno, Canto XXVII, lines 61-66
by Dante Alighieri

"S'i' credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria sanza più scosse;

ma però che già mai di questo fondo
non tornò vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
sanza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

'If I but thought that my response were made
to one perhaps returning to the world,
this tongue of flame would cease to flicker.

'But since, up from these depths, no one has yet
returned alive, if what I hear is true,
I answer without fear of being shamed.