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

Автор: Dante Alighieri

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

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isbn: 9788027233335

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СКАЧАТЬ wish to fly, yet ventures not to quit

       The nest, and drops it; so in me desire

       Of questioning my guide arose, and fell,

       Arriving even to the act, that marks

       A man prepar'd for speech. Him all our haste

       Restrain'd not, but thus spake the sire belov'd:

       "Fear not to speed the shaft, that on thy lip

       Stands trembling for its flight." Encourag'd thus

       I straight began: "How there can leanness come,

       Where is no want of nourishment to feed?"

       "If thou," he answer'd, "hadst remember'd thee,

       How Meleager with the wasting brand

       Wasted alike, by equal fires consum'd,

       This would not trouble thee: and hadst thou thought,

       How in the mirror your reflected form

       With mimic motion vibrates, what now seems

       Hard, had appear'd no harder than the pulp

       Of summer fruit mature. But that thy will

       In certainty may find its full repose,

       Lo Statius here! on him I call, and pray

       That he would now be healer of thy wound."

       "If in thy presence I unfold to him

       The secrets of heaven's vengeance, let me plead

       Thine own injunction, to exculpate me."

       So Statius answer'd, and forthwith began:

       "Attend my words, O son, and in thy mind

       Receive them: so shall they be light to clear

       The doubt thou offer'st. Blood, concocted well,

       Which by the thirsty veins is ne'er imbib'd,

       And rests as food superfluous, to be ta'en

       From the replenish'd table, in the heart

       Derives effectual virtue, that informs

       The several human limbs, as being that,

       Which passes through the veins itself to make them.

       Yet more concocted it descends, where shame

       Forbids to mention: and from thence distils

       In natural vessel on another's blood.

       Then each unite together, one dispos'd

       T' endure, to act the other, through meet frame

       Of its recipient mould: that being reach'd,

       It 'gins to work, coagulating first;

       Then vivifies what its own substance caus'd

       To bear. With animation now indued,

       The active virtue (differing from a plant

       No further, than that this is on the way

       And at its limit that) continues yet

       To operate, that now it moves, and feels,

       As sea sponge clinging to the rock: and there

       Assumes th' organic powers its seed convey'd.

       'This is the period, son! at which the virtue,

       That from the generating heart proceeds,

       Is pliant and expansive; for each limb

       Is in the heart by forgeful nature plann'd.

       How babe of animal becomes, remains

       For thy consid'ring. At this point, more wise,

       Than thou hast err'd, making the soul disjoin'd

       From passive intellect, because he saw

       No organ for the latter's use assign'd.

       "Open thy bosom to the truth that comes.

       Know soon as in the embryo, to the brain,

       Articulation is complete, then turns

       The primal Mover with a smile of joy

       On such great work of nature, and imbreathes

       New spirit replete with virtue, that what here

       Active it finds, to its own substance draws,

       And forms an individual soul, that lives,

       And feels, and bends reflective on itself.

       And that thou less mayst marvel at the word,

       Mark the sun's heat, how that to wine doth change,

       Mix'd with the moisture filter'd through the vine.

       "When Lachesis hath spun the thread, the soul

       Takes with her both the human and divine,

       Memory, intelligence, and will, in act

       Far keener than before, the other powers

       Inactive all and mute. No pause allow'd,

       In wond'rous sort self-moving, to one strand

       Of those, where the departed roam, she falls,

       Here learns her destin'd path. Soon as the place

       Receives her, round the plastic virtue beams,

       Distinct as in the living limbs before:

       And as the air, when saturate with showers,

       The casual beam refracting, decks itself

       With many a hue; so here the ambient air

       Weareth that form, which influence of the soul

       Imprints on it; and like the flame, that where

       The fire moves, thither follows, so henceforth

       The new form on the spirit follows still:

       Hence hath it semblance, and is shadow call'd,

       With each sense even to the sight endued:

       Hence speech is ours, hence laughter, tears, and sighs

       Which thou mayst oft have witness'd СКАЧАТЬ