Hmmmm

Faced with that truth which seems a lie, a man
should always close his lips as long as he can--
to tell it shames him, even though he's blameless;
but here I can't be still; and by the lines
of this my Comedy, reader, I swear--
and may my verse find favor for long years--
that through the dense and darkened air I saw
a figure swimming, rising up, enough
to bring amazement to the firmest heart,
like one returning from the waves where he
went down to loose an anchor snagged upon
a reef or something else hid in the sea,
who stretched upward and draws in his feet.

-- Canto XVI of the Inferno of Dante's The Divine Comedy, trans. Allen Mandelbaum