Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.

Asia Minor: Crete (Candia), the Island

Crete

By Dante Alighieri (c. 1265–1321)

(From Inferno, Canto XIV)
Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“IN the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,”

Said he thereafterward, “whose name is Crete,

Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

There is a mountain there, that once was glad

With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;

Now ’t is deserted, as a thing worn out.

Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle

Of her own son; and to conceal him better,

Whene’er he cried, she there had clamors made.”