Harvard Classics Volume 20. Golden Deer Classics

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СКАЧАТЬ pause till here the horned flame arrive.

      See, how toward it with desires I bend.”

      He thus: “Thy prayer is worthy of much praise,

      And I accept it therefore; but do thou

      Thy tongue refrain: to question them be mine;

      For I divine thy wish: and they perchance,

      For they were Greeks,^[173] might shun discourse with thee.”

      When there the flame had come, where time and place

      Seem’d fitting to my guide, he thus began:

      “O ye, who dwell two spirits in one fire!

      If, living, I of you did merit aught,

      Whate’er the measure were of that desert,

      When in the world my lofty strain I pour’d,

      Move ye not on, till one of you unfold

      In what clime death o’ertook him self-destroy’d.”

      Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn

      Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire

      That labors with the wind, then to and fro

      Wagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds,

      Threw out its voice, and spake: “When I escaped

      From Circe, who beyond a circling year

      Had held me near Caieta by her charms,

      Ere thus Æneas yet had named the shore;

      Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence

      Of my old father, nor return of love,

      That should have crown’d Penelope with joy,

      Could overcome in me the zeal I had

      To explore the world, and search the ways of life,

      Man’s evil and his virtue. Forth I sail’d

      Into the deep illimitable main,

      With but one bark, and the small faithful band

      That yet cleaved to me. As Iberia far,

      Far as Marocco, either shore I saw,

      And the Sardinian and each isle beside

      Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age

      Were I and my companions, when we came

      To the strait pass,^[174] where Hercules ordain’d

      The boundaries not to be o’erstepp’d by man.

      The walls of Seville to my right I left,

      On the other hand already Ceuta past.

      ‘O brothers!’ I began, ‘who to the west

      Through perils without number now have reach’d;

      To this the short remaining watch, that yet

      Our senses have to wake, refuse not proof

      Of the unpeopled world, following the track

      Of Phœbus. Call to mind from whence ye sprang:

      Ye were not form’d to live the life of brutes,

      But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.’

      With these few words I sharpen’d for the voyage

      The mind of my associates, that I then

      Could scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn

      Our poop we turn’d, and for the witless flight

      Made our oars wings, still gaining on the left.

      Each star of the other pole night now beheld,

      And ours so low, that from the ocean floor

      It rose not. Five times reillumed, as oft

      Vanish’d the light from underneath the moon,

      Since the deep way we enter’d, when from far

      Appear’d a mountain dim,^[175] loftiest methought

      Of all I e’er beheld. Joy seized us straight;

      But soon to mourning changed. From the new land

      A whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side

      Did strike the vessel. Thrice it whirl’d her round

      With all the waves; the fourth time lifted up

      The poop, and sank the prow: so fate decreed:

      And over us the booming billow closed.”^[176]

Canto XXVII

      Argument.—The Poet, treating of the same punishment as in the last Canto, relates that he turned toward a flame in which was the Count Guido da Montefeltro, whose inquiries respecting the state of Romagna he answers; and Guido is thereby induced to declare who he is, and why condemned to that torment.

      Now upward rose the flame, and still’d its light

      To speak no more, and now pass’d on with leave

      From the mild poet gain’d; when following came

      Another, from whose top a sound confused,

      Forth issuing, drew our eyes that way to look.

      As the Sicilian bull,^[177] that rightfully

      His cries first echoed who had shaped its mould,

      Did so rebellow, with the voice of him

      Tormented, that the brazen monster seem’d

      Pierced through with pain; thus, while no way they found,

      Nor avenue immediate through the flame,

      Into its language turn’d the dismal words:

      But soon as they had won their passage forth,

      Up from the point, which vibrating obey’d

      Their motion at the tongue, these sounds were heard:

      “O СКАЧАТЬ