THE DIVINE COMEDY: Inferno, Purgatorio & Paradiso (3 Classic Translations in One Edition). Dante Alighieri

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       The wretch appear'd amid all these to say:

       "Grant vengeance, sire! for, woe beshrew this heart

       My son is murder'd." He replying seem'd;

       "Wait now till I return." And she, as one

       Made hasty by her grief; "O sire, if thou

       Dost not return?"—"Where I am, who then is,

       May right thee."—"What to thee is other's good,

       If thou neglect thy own?"—"Now comfort thee,"

       At length he answers. "It beseemeth well

       My duty be perform'd, ere I move hence:

       So justice wills; and pity bids me stay."

       He, whose ken nothing new surveys, produc'd

       That visible speaking, new to us and strange

       The like not found on earth. Fondly I gaz'd

       Upon those patterns of meek humbleness,

       Shapes yet more precious for their artist's sake,

       When "Lo," the poet whisper'd, "where this way

       (But slack their pace), a multitude advance.

       These to the lofty steps shall guide us on."

       Mine eyes, though bent on view of novel sights

       Their lov'd allurement, were not slow to turn.

       Reader! I would not that amaz'd thou miss

       Of thy good purpose, hearing how just God

       Decrees our debts be cancel'd. Ponder not

       The form of suff'ring. Think on what succeeds,

       Think that at worst beyond the mighty doom

       It cannot pass. "Instructor," I began,

       "What I see hither tending, bears no trace

       Of human semblance, nor of aught beside

       That my foil'd sight can guess." He answering thus:

       "So courb'd to earth, beneath their heavy teems

       Of torment stoop they, that mine eye at first

       Struggled as thine. But look intently thither,

       An disentangle with thy lab'ring view,

       What underneath those stones approacheth: now,

       E'en now, mayst thou discern the pangs of each."

       Christians and proud! O poor and wretched ones!

       That feeble in the mind's eye, lean your trust

       Upon unstaid perverseness! Know ye not

       That we are worms, yet made at last to form

       The winged insect, imp'd with angel plumes

       That to heaven's justice unobstructed soars?

       Why buoy ye up aloft your unfleg'd souls?

       Abortive then and shapeless ye remain,

       Like the untimely embryon of a worm!

       As, to support incumbent floor or roof,

       For corbel is a figure sometimes seen,

       That crumples up its knees unto its breast,

       With the feign'd posture stirring ruth unfeign'd

       In the beholder's fancy; so I saw

       These fashion'd, when I noted well their guise.

       Each, as his back was laden, came indeed

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