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"Before I free myself from the abyss,
My master," I said when I was on my feet,
"Speak, and dispel my error: where is the ice?

And how can he be fixed head-down like that?
And in so short a time, how can it be
Possible for the sun to make its transit

From evening to morning?" He answered me,
"You imagine you are still on the other side,
Across the center of the earth, where I

Grappled the hair of the evil serpent's hide
Who pierces the world. And all through my descent,
You were on that side; when I turned my head

And legs about, you passed the central point
To which is drawn, from every side, all weight.
Now you are on the opposite continent

Beneath the opposite hemisphere to that
Which canopies the great dry land therein;
Under the zenith of that one is the site

Whereon the Man was slain who without sin
Was born and lived; your feet this minute press
Upon a little sphere whose rounded skin

Forms the Judecca's other, outward face.
Here it is morning when it is evening there;
The one whose hair was like a ladder for us

Is still positioned as he was before.
One this side he fell down from Heaven; the earth;
Which till then stood out here, impelled by fear

Veiled itself in the sea and issued forth
In our own hemisphere. And possibly,
What now appears on this side fled its berth

And rushing upward left a cavity:
This hollow where we stand." There is below,
As far from Beelzebub as one can be

Within his tomb, a place one cannot know
By sight, but by the sound a little runnel
Makes as it wends the hollow rock its flow

Has worn, descending through its winding channel:
To get back up to the shining world from there
My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel;

And following its path, we took no care
To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far,
Through a round aperture I saw appear

Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.


-Dante's Inferno, Canto 34.

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