“ ‘Let memory preserve what thou hast heard Against thyself,’ that Sage commanded me, ‘And now attend here’; and he raised his finger. ‘When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet Of her whose beauteous eyes all things be hold, From her thou ’lt learn the journey of thy life.’ ”

And afterwards, in reply to Brunetto Latini, Dante says, Inferno XV 88:⁠—

“What you narrate of my career I write,

And keep it for a lady, who will know,

To gloss with other text, if e’er I reach her.”