Harvard Classics Volume 20. Golden Deer Classics

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СКАЧАТЬ the midway^[1] of this our mortal life,

      I found me in a gloomy wood, astray

      Gone from the path direct: and e’en to tell,

      It were no easy task, how savage wild

      That forest, how robust and rough its growth,

      Which to remember only, my dismay

      Renews, in bitterness not far from death.

      Yet, to discourse of what there good befel,

      All else will I relate discover’d there.

      How first I enter’d it I scarce can say,

      Such sleepy dulness in that instant weigh’d

      My senses down, when the true path I left;

      But when a mountain’s foot I reach’d, where closed

      The valley that had pierced my heart with dread,

      I look’d aloft, and saw his shoulders broad

      Already vested with that planet’s beam,^[2]

      Who leads all wanderers safe through every way.

      Then was a little respite to the fear,

      That in my heart’s recesses deep had lain

      All of that night, so pitifully past:

      And as a man, with difficult short breath,

      Forespent with toiling, ’scaped from sea to shore,

      Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands

      At gaze; e’en so my spirit, that yet fail’d,

      Struggling with terror, turn’d to view the straits

      That none hath passed and lived. My weary frame

      After short pause recomforted, again

      I journey’d on over that lonely steep,

      The hinder foot^[3] still firmer. Scarce the ascent

      Began, when, lo! a panther,^[4] nimble, light,

      And cover’d with a speckled skin, appear’d;

      Nor, when it saw me, vanish’d; rather strove

      To check my onward going; that oft-times,

      With purpose to retrace my steps, I turn’d.

      The hour was morning’s prime, and on his way

      Aloft the sun ascended with those stars,^[5]

      That with him rose when Love Divine first moved

      Those its fair works: so that with joyous hope

      All things conspired to fill me, the gay skin

      Of that swift animal, the matin dawn,

      And the sweet season. Soon that joy was chased.

      And by new dread succeeded, when in view

      A lion came, ’gainst me as it appear’d,

      With his head held aloft and hunger-mad,

      That e’en the air was fear-struck. A she-wolf

      Was at his heels, who in her leanness seem’d

      Full of all wants, and many a land hath made

      Disconsolate ere now. She with such fear

      O’erwhelm’d me, at the sight of her appall’d,

      That of the height all hope I lost. As one,

      Who, with his gain elated, sees the time

      When all unawares is gone, he inwardly

      Mourns with heart-griping anguish; such was I,

      Haunted by that fell beast, never at peace,

      Who coming o’er against me, by degrees

      Impell’d me where the sun in silence rests.

      While to the lower space with backward step

      I fell, my ken discern’d the form of one

      Whose voice seem’d faint through long disuse of speech.

      When him in that great desert I espied,

      “Have mercy on me,” cried I out aloud,

      “Spirit! or living man! whate’er thou be.”

      He answered: “Now not man, man once I was,

      And born of Lombard parents, Mantuans both

      By country, when the power of Julius yet

      Was scarcely firm. At Rome my life was past,

      Beneath the mild Augustus, in the time

      Of fabled deities and false. A bard

      Was I, and made Anchises’ upright son

      The subject of my song, who came from Troy,

      When the flames prey’d on Ilium’s haughty towers.

      But thou, say wherefore to such perils past

      Return’st thou? wherefore not this pleasant mount

      Ascendest, cause and source of all delight?”

      “And art thou then that Virgil, that well-spring,

      From which such copious floods of eloquence

      Have issued?” I with front abash’d replied.

      “Glory and light of all the tuneful train!

      May it avail me, that I long with zeal

      Have sought thy volume, and with love immense

      Have conn’d it o’er. My master thou, and guide!

      Thou he from whom alone I have derived

      That style, which for its beauty into fame

      Exalts me. See the beast, from whom I fled.

      O save me from her, thou illustrious sage!

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