First Sentence

"A comparison of the semantic range of pietas in the Aeneid with that of its Italian cognate pieta in the Commedia may seem difficult to justify at first glance, since the Latin word comprises both "duty owed to the gods, to one's parents, and to one's country" and "clemency, sympathy, fellow feeling," but in medieval Italian (and in Old French, Old Spanish, and Middle English as well), pieta is generally limited to the second sense, especially as "pity, compassion.""