Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age, who sang its happy state, perhaps, in their Parnassus, dreamt this place. Here, mankind's root was innocent; and here were every fruit and never-ending spring; these streams—the nectar of which poets sing.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: pt. 1. Purgatorio, introduction, Italian text & translation, and thirty-four drawings (ed. 1982)