Epigraph
Lo giorno se n’andava
The epigraph consists of the first nine lines of Canto II from Inferno (ca. 1315) by Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). Dante’s poetic labors take place in a world that is transitioning from day into night, something that is symbolically true also for Z. in DF. And like Z., Dante confronts both contemporary woes and the agony of recollection. In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s translation of 1867:
Day was departing, and the browned air
Released the animals that are on earth
From their fatigues; and I the only one
Made myself ready to sustain the war,
Both of the way and likewise of the woe,
Which memory that errs not shall retrace.
O Muses, O high genius, now assist me!
O memory, that didst write down what I saw,
Here thy nobility shall be manifest!