Innocence Once Lost - Religious Classics Collection. Джон Мильтон

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      Canto XXVI. The Eighth Bolgia: Evil Counsellors. Ulysses and Diomed. Ulysses' Last Voyage.

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      Rejoice, O Florence, since thou art so great,

       That over sea and land thou beatest thy wings,

       And throughout Hell thy name is spread abroad!

      Among the thieves five citizens of thine

       Like these I found, whence shame comes unto me,

       And thou thereby to no great honour risest.

      But if when morn is near our dreams are true,

       Feel shalt thou in a little time from now

       What Prato, if none other, craves for thee.

      And if it now were, it were not too soon;

       Would that it were, seeing it needs must be,

       For 'twill aggrieve me more the more I age.

      We went our way, and up along the stairs

       The bourns had made us to descend before,

       Remounted my Conductor and drew me.

      And following the solitary path

       Among the rocks and ridges of the crag,

       The foot without the hand sped not at all.

      Then sorrowed I, and sorrow now again,

       When I direct my mind to what I saw,

       And more my genius curb than I am wont,

      That it may run not unless virtue guide it;

       So that if some good star, or better thing,

       Have given me good, I may myself not grudge it.

      As many as the hind (who on the hill

       Rests at the time when he who lights the world

       His countenance keeps least concealed from us,

      While as the fly gives place unto the gnat)

       Seeth the glow-worms down along the valley,

       Perchance there where he ploughs and makes his vintage;

      With flames as manifold resplendent all

       Was the eighth Bolgia, as I grew aware

       As soon as I was where the depth appeared.

      And such as he who with the bears avenged him

       Beheld Elijah's chariot at departing,

       What time the steeds to heaven erect uprose,

      For with his eye he could not follow it

       So as to see aught else than flame alone,

       Even as a little cloud ascending upward,

      Thus each along the gorge of the intrenchment

       Was moving; for not one reveals the theft,

       And every flame a sinner steals away.

      I stood upon the bridge uprisen to see,

       So that, if I had seized not on a rock,

       Down had I fallen without being pushed.

      And the Leader, who beheld me so attent,

       Exclaimed: "Within the fires the spirits are;

       Each swathes himself with that wherewith he burns."

      "My Master," I replied, "by hearing thee

       I am more sure; but I surmised already

       It might be so, and already wished to ask thee

      Who is within that fire, which comes so cleft

       At top, it seems uprising from the pyre

       Where was Eteocles with his brother placed."

      He answered me: "Within there are tormented

       Ulysses and Diomed, and thus together

       They unto vengeance run as unto wrath.

      And there within their flame do they lament

       The ambush of the horse, which made the door

       Whence issued forth the Romans' gentle seed;

      Therein is wept the craft, for which being dead

       Deidamia still deplores Achilles,

       And pain for the Palladium there is borne."

      "If they within those sparks possess the power

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