Darkness of Hell and of a night deprived
of every planet, under meager skies,
as overcast by clouds as sky can be,

had never served to veil my eyes so thickly
nor covered them with such rough-textured stuff
as smoke that wrapped us there in Purgatory;

my eyes could not endure remaining open

- Purgatorio, Canto XVI, Lines 1-7, Mandelbaum translation