In an age where you are expected to shout, tweet, bluster and generally blather about everything you do, it is heartening to read Virgil’s pithy injunction that reasonable requests should be responded to by silent action. 

“The answer to a fair

Request should be the silent deed.”  

‘… ché la dimanda onesta

si de’ seguir con l’opera tacendo.’

See also our illustrated quote-rich celebration of Dante’s Divine Comedy in Clive James’ entrance-lation. 

Source: Dante,The Divine Comedy, Inferno – Canto 24, trans. Clive James (New York: Liveright Publishing, 2013), p. 116

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