A thunderclap wakes him
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Ruppemi l’ alto sonno ne la testa un greve truono, sì ch’ io mi riscossi come persona ch’ è per forza desta;
A heavy peal of thunder broke the deep sleep in my head, so that I started up like a person woken by force.
Dante wakes on the far side of the swoon that ended Canto III, roused by thunder.
Canto IV opens on a jolt. Dante had fainted at the edge of Acheron; now thunder tears the sleep in his head, and he wakes the way anyone wakes when shaken awake against their will — abruptly, not knowing where the ground is.
The simile <i>come persona ch’è per forza desta</i> is disarmingly ordinary. Before Limbo shows a single famous soul, the poem grounds us in a plain human sensation, the disorientation of being pulled out of unconsciousness.
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