Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One. Данте Алигьери

loosed her.

      For thyself were well

      To follow where I lead, and thou shalt see

      The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe,

      The unending cries, of those whose only plea

      Is judgment, that the second death to be

      Fall quickly. Further shalt thou climb, and go

      To those who burn, but in their pain content

      With hope of pardon; still beyond, more high,

      Holier than opens to such souls as I,

      The Heavens uprear; but if thou wilt, is one

      Worthier, and she shall guide thee there, where none

      Who did the Lord of those fair realms deny

      May enter. There in his city He dwells, and there

      Rules and pervades in every part, and calls

      His chosen ever within the sacred walls.

      O happiest, they!”

      I answered, “By that God

      Thou didst not know, I do thine aid entreat,

      And guidance, that beyond the ills I meet

      I safety find, within the Sacred Gate

      That Peter guards, and those sad souls to see

      Who look with longing for their end to be.”

      Then he moved forward, and behind I trod.

      CANTO II

      THE day was falling, and the darkening air

      Released earth’s creatures from their toils, while I,

      I only, faced the bitter road and bare

      My Master led. I only, must defy

      The powers of pity, and the night to be.

      So thought I, but the things I came to see,

      Which memory holds, could never thought forecast.

      O Muses high! O Genius, first and last!

      Memories intense! Your utmost powers combine

      To meet this need. For never theme as mine

      Strained vainly, where your loftiest nobleness

      Must fail to be sufficient.

      First I said,

      Fearing, to him who through the darkness led,

      “O poet, ere the arduous path ye press

      Too far, look in me, if the worth there be

      To make this transit. Æneas once, I know,

      Went down in life, and crossed the infernal sea;

      And if the Lord of All Things Lost Below

      Allowed it, reason seems, to those who see

      The enduring greatness of his destiny,

      Who in the Empyrean Heaven elect was called

      Sire of the Eternal City, that throned and walled

      Made Empire of the world beyond, to be

      The Holy Place at last, by God’s decree,

      Where the great Peter’s follower rules. For he

      Learned there the causes of his victory.

      “And later to the third great Heaven was caught

      The last Apostle, and thence returning brought

      The proofs of our salvation. But, for me,

      I am not Æneas, nay, nor Paul, to see

      Unspeakable things that depths or heights can show,

      And if this road for no sure end I go

      What folly is mine? But any words are weak.

      Thy wisdom further than the things I speak

      Can search the event that would be.”

      Here I stayed

      My steps amid the darkness, and the Shade

      That led me heard and turned, magnanimous,

      And saw me drained of purpose halting thus,

      And answered, “If thy coward-born thoughts be clear,

      And all thy once intent, infirmed of fear,

      Broken, then art thou as scared beasts that shy

      From shadows, surely that they know not why

      Nor wherefore… Hearken, to confound thy fear,

      The things which first I heard, and brought me here.…

      One came where, in the Outer Place, I dwell,

      Suspense from hope of Heaven or fear of Hell,

      Radiant in light that native round her clung,

      And cast her eyes our hopeless Shades among

      (Eyes with no earthly like but heaven’s own blue),

      And called me to her in such voice as few

      In that grim place had heard, so low, so clear,

      So toned and cadenced from the Utmost Sphere,

      The Unattainable Heaven from which she came.

      ‘O Mantuan Spirit,’ she said, ‘whose lasting fame

      Continues on the earth ye left, and still

      With Time shall stand, an earthly friend to me,

      —My friend, not fortune’s—climbs a path so ill

      That all the night-bred fears he hastes to flee

      Were kindly to the thing he nears. The tale

      Moved through the peace of Heaven, and swift I sped

      Downward, to aid my friend in love’s avail,

      With scanty time therefore, that half I dread

      Too late I came. But thou shalt haste, and go

      With golden wisdom of thy speech, that so

      For me be consolation. Thou shalt say,

      “I come from Beatricë.” Downward far,

      From Heaven to Heaven I sank, from star to star,

      To find thee, and to point his rescuing way.

      Fain would I to my place of light return;

      Love moved me from it, and gave me power to learn

      Thy speech. When next before my Lord I stand

      I very oft shall praise thee.’

      Here she ceased,

      And I gave answer to that dear command,

      ‘Lady, alone through whom the whole race of those

      The smallest Heaven the moon’s short orbits hold

      Excels in its creation, not thy least,

      Thy lightest wish in this dark realm were told

      Vainly. But show me why the Heavens unclose

      To loose thee from them, and thyself content

      Couldst thus continue in such strange descent

      From that most Spacious Place for which ye burn,

      And while ye further left, would fain return.’

      “‘That which thou wouldst,’ she said, ‘I briefly