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Message 202: Come on, shake off the covers of this sloth

“Come on, shake off the covers of this sloth,”
the master said, “for sitting softly cushioned,
or tucked in bed, is no way to win fame;

and without it man must waste his life away,
leaving such traces of what he was on earth
as smoke in wind and foam upon the water.

Stand up! Dominate this weariness of yours
with the strength of soul that winds in every battle
if it does not sink beneath the body’s weight.

Much steeper stairs than these we’ll have to climb” (XXIV, 46-55, pg. 198)

— Dante Alighieri, Dante’s Inferno, trans. Mark Musa (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1971).

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