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

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       The whilst I liv'd, through eagerness of zeal

       For that pre-eminence my heart was bent on.

       Here of such pride the forfeiture is paid.

       Nor were I even here; if, able still

       To sin, I had not turn'd me unto God.

       O powers of man! how vain your glory, nipp'd

       E'en in its height of verdure, if an age

       Less bright succeed not! Cimabue thought

       To lord it over painting's field; and now

       The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclips'd.

       Thus hath one Guido from the other snatch'd

       The letter'd prize: and he perhaps is born,

       Who shall drive either from their nest. The noise

       Of worldly fame is but a blast of wind,

       That blows from divers points, and shifts its name

       Shifting the point it blows from. Shalt thou more

       Live in the mouths of mankind, if thy flesh

       Part shrivel'd from thee, than if thou hadst died,

       Before the coral and the pap were left,

       Or ere some thousand years have passed? and that

       Is, to eternity compar'd, a space,

       Briefer than is the twinkling of an eye

       To the heaven's slowest orb. He there who treads

       So leisurely before me, far and wide

       Through Tuscany resounded once; and now

       Is in Sienna scarce with whispers nam'd:

       There was he sov'reign, when destruction caught

       The madd'ning rage of Florence, in that day

       Proud as she now is loathsome. Your renown

       Is as the herb, whose hue doth come and go,

       And his might withers it, by whom it sprang

       Crude from the lap of earth." I thus to him:

       "True are thy sayings: to my heart they breathe

       The kindly spirit of meekness, and allay

       What tumours rankle there. But who is he

       Of whom thou spak'st but now?"--"This," he replied,

       "Is Provenzano. He is here, because

       He reach'd, with grasp presumptuous, at the sway

       Of all Sienna. Thus he still hath gone,

       Thus goeth never-resting, since he died.

       Such is th' acquittance render'd back of him,

       Who, beyond measure, dar'd on earth." I then:

       "If soul that to the verge of life delays

       Repentance, linger in that lower space,

       Nor hither mount, unless good prayers befriend,

       How chanc'd admittance was vouchsaf'd to him?"