Extra credit

Dante's Inferno epigraph:
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
( if I believed my reply were given)
A persona chemia tornasse al mondo,
(to one who might ever return to the earth, this fire would cease further monement)
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
(but as for this chasm)
Mia perciocche giammai di questo fondo
(no one has ever come back alive---)
Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,
(if what I have heard is true---)
Sensa tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
(without fearing infamy will I respond to you)
I believe T.S. Elliot chose to use Dante's Inferno epigraph to give homage to the Poet, and also to add emphasis on his interactions with people in the poem, even if his reply/response were given to them, would it have made a difference to the lady's talking of Michelangelo, "So how should I presume? And how should I presume? And then should I presume? And how should I begin?" The dammed souls in the depths of hell speaking their secrets is similar to the confessions of J. Alfred Prufrock in that he too is confessing his vanity of what others think. "When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin." He feels like he is a specimen to be scrutinized and dissected, in his eyes pinned. He is confessing like many of the dammed souls because he too is in a state of eternal hell/limbo. How should he start a conversation, what people will think of him, with his balding head, and rolled up pant, his age, when he is around such women/people. The audience in Dante's Inferno is like that of the audience in J. Alfred Prufrock in that we all have vanity in us. How we look in certain people's company, are we too big, or small, pretty or ugly, rich or poor. What will people think? Its the fact that all people judge and are judged for what they do in life, and in turn in death. He is reaching the age to start thinking of the "eternal footman" and death laughs. But doesn't death laugh at us all? Everyone eventually meets death.