The Divine Comedy (Complete Annotated Edition). Dante Alighieri

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СКАЧАТЬ Canto X

       Canto XI

       Canto XII

       Canto XIII

       Canto XIV

       Canto XV

       Canto XVI

       Canto XVII

       Canto XVIII

       Canto XIX

       Canto XX

       Canto XXI

       Canto XXII

       Canto XXIII

       Canto XXIV

       Canto XXV

       Canto XXVI

       Canto XXVII

       Canto XXVIII

       Canto XXIX

       Canto XXX

       Canto XXXI

       Canto XXXII

       Canto XXXIII

       Canto XXXIV

      Canto I

       Table of Contents

      ARGUMENT.—The writer, having lost his way in a gloomy forest, and being hindered by certain wild beasts from ascending a mountain, is met by Virgil, who promises to show him the punishments of Hell, and afterward of Purgatory; and that he shall then be conducted by Beatrice into Paradise. He follows the Roman poet.

IN the midway1 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 befell,

      All else will I relate discover’d there.

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

      Such sleepy dullness in that instant weigh’d

      My senses down, when the true path I left,

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

      The valley, that had pierc’d 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 pass’d:

      And as a man, with difficult short breath,

      Forespent with toiling, ’scap’d 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 pass’d and liv’d. My weary frame

      After short pause recomforted, again

      I journey’d on over that lonely steep,

The hinder foot3 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 ofttimes

      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 mov’d

      Those СКАЧАТЬ