Harvard Classics Volume 20. Golden Deer Classics

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СКАЧАТЬ spake: “This of the seven kings was one,

      Who girt the Theban walls with siege, and held,

      As still he seems to hold, God in disdain,

      And sets His high omnipotence at naught.

      But, as I told him, his despiteful mood

      Is ornament well suits the breast that wears it.

      Follow me now; and look thou set not yet

      Thy foot in the hot sand, but to the wood

      Keep ever close.” Silently on we pass’d

      To where there gushes from the forest’s bound

      A little brook, whose crimson’d wave yet lifts

      My hair with horror. As the rill, that runs

      From Bulicame,^[99] to be portion’d out

      Among the sinful women, so ran this

      Down through the sand; its bottom and each bank

      Stone-built, and either margin at its side,

      Whereon I straight perceived our passage lay.

      “Of all that I have shown thee, since that gate

      We enter’d first, whose threshold is to none

      Denied, naught else so worthy of regard,

      As is this river, has thine eye discern’d,

      O’er which the flaming volley all is quench’d.”

      So spake my guide; and I him thence besought,

      That having given me appetite to know,

      The food he too would give, that hunger craved.

      “In midst of ocean,” forthwith he began,

      “A desolate country lies, which Crete is named;

      Under whose monarch, in old times, the world

      Lived pure and chaste. A mountain rises there,

      Call’d Ida, joyous once with leaves and streams,

      Deserted now like a forbidden thing.

      It was the spot which Rhea, Saturn’s spouse,

      Chose for the secret cradle of her son;

      And better to conceal him, drown’d in shouts

      His infant cries. Within the mount, upright

      An ancient form there stands, and huge, that turns

      His shoulders toward Damiata; and at Rome,

      As in his mirror, looks. Of finest gold

      His head is shaped, pure silver are the breast

      And arms, thence to the middle is of brass,

      And downward all beneath well-temper’d steel,

      Save the right foot of potter’s clay, on which

      Than on the other more erect he stands.

      Each part, except the gold, is rent throughout;

      And from the fissure tears distil, which join’d

      Penetrate to that cave. They in their course,

      Thus far precipitated down the rock,

      Form Acheron, and Styx, and Phlegethon;

      Then by this straiten’d channel passing hence

      Beneath e’en to the lowest depth of all,

      Form there Cocytus, of whose lake (thyself

      Shalt see it) I here give thee no account.”

      Then I to him: “If from our world this sluice

      Be thus derived; wherefore to us but now

      Appears it at this edge?” He straight replied:

      “The place, thou know’st, is round: and though great part

      Thou have already past, still to the left

      Descending to the nethermost, not yet

      Hast thou the circuit made of the whole orb.

      Wherefore, if aught of new to us appear,

      It needs not bring up wonder in thy looks.”

      Then I again inquired: “Where flow the streams

      Of Phlegethon and Lethe? for of one

      Thou tell’st not; and the other, of that shower,

      Thou say’st, is form’d.” He answer thus return’d:

      “Doubtless thy questions all well pleased I hear.

      Yet the red seething wave^[100] might have resolved

      One thou proposest. Lethe thou shalt see,

      But not within this hollow, in the place

      Whither,^[101] to lave themselves, the spirits go,

      Whose blame hath been by penitence removed.”

      He added: “Time is now we quit the wood.

      Look thou my steps pursue: the margins give

      Safe passage, unimpeded by the flames;

      For over them all vapor is extinct.”

Canto XV

      Argument.—Taking their way upon one of the mounds by which the streamlet, spoken of in the last Canto, was embanked, and having gone so far that they could no longer have discerned the forest if they had turned round to look for it, they meet a troop of spirits that come along the sand by the side of the pier. These are they who have done violence to Nature; and among them Dante distinguishes Brunetto Latini, who had been formerly his master; with whom, turning a little backward, he holds a discourse which occupies the remainder of this Canto.

      One of the solid margins bears us now

      Envelop’d in the mist, that, from the stream

      Arising, hovers o’er, and saves from fire

      Both piers and water. As the Flemings rear

      Their СКАЧАТЬ