Eliot's note for line 63

Cf. Inferno III, 55-57:

                    si lunga tratta
di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.

Commentator's note

Eliot is referring us to Dante Alighieri's poem Inferno, Canto III, verses 55-57.

The line quoted by Eliot can be translated as:

Such a long train of spirits, I should ne'er
Have thought, that death so many had despoil'd.