Innocence Once Lost - Religious Classics Collection. Джон Мильтон
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Innocence Once Lost - Religious Classics Collection - Джон Мильтон страница 55

Название: Innocence Once Lost - Religious Classics Collection

Автор: Джон Мильтон

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

Серия:

isbn: 4064066499129

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ sets it.

      And, that thou mayest more willingly remove

       From off my countenance these glassy tears,

       Know that as soon as any soul betrays

      As I have done, his body by a demon

       Is taken from him, who thereafter rules it,

       Until his time has wholly been revolved.

      Itself down rushes into such a cistern;

       And still perchance above appears the body

       Of yonder shade, that winters here behind me.

      This thou shouldst know, if thou hast just come down;

       It is Ser Branca d' Oria, and many years

       Have passed away since he was thus locked up."

      "I think," said I to him, "thou dost deceive me;

       For Branca d' Oria is not dead as yet,

       And eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and puts on clothes."

      "In moat above," said he, "of Malebranche,

       There where is boiling the tenacious pitch,

       As yet had Michel Zanche not arrived,

      When this one left a devil in his stead

       In his own body and one near of kin,

       Who made together with him the betrayal.

      But hitherward stretch out thy hand forthwith,

       Open mine eyes;"—and open them I did not,

       And to be rude to him was courtesy.

      Ah, Genoese! ye men at variance

       With every virtue, full of every vice

       Wherefore are ye not scattered from the world?

      For with the vilest spirit of Romagna

       I found of you one such, who for his deeds

       In soul already in Cocytus bathes,

      And still above in body seems alive!

      Canto XXXIV. Fourth Division of the Ninth Circle, the Judecca: Traitors to their Lords and Benefactors. Lucifer, Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. The Chasm of Lethe. The Ascent.

       Table of Contents

      "'Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni'

       Towards us; therefore look in front of thee,"

       My Master said, "if thou discernest him."

      As, when there breathes a heavy fog, or when

       Our hemisphere is darkening into night,

       Appears far off a mill the wind is turning,

      Methought that such a building then I saw;

       And, for the wind, I drew myself behind

       My Guide, because there was no other shelter.

      Now was I, and with fear in verse I put it,

       There where the shades were wholly covered up,

       And glimmered through like unto straws in glass.

      Some prone are lying, others stand erect,

       This with the head, and that one with the soles;

       Another, bow-like, face to feet inverts.

      When in advance so far we had proceeded,

       That it my Master pleased to show to me

       The creature who once had the beauteous semblance,

      He from before me moved and made me stop,

       Saying: "Behold Dis, and behold the place

       Where thou with fortitude must arm thyself."

      How frozen I became and powerless then,

       Ask it not, Reader, for I write it not,

       Because all language would be insufficient.

      I did not die, and I alive remained not;

       Think for thyself now, hast thou aught of wit,

       What I became, being of both deprived.

      The Emperor of the kingdom dolorous

       From his mid-breast forth issued from the ice;

       And better with a giant I compare

      Than do the giants with those arms of his;

       Consider now how great must be that whole,

       Which unto such a part conforms itself.

      Were he as fair once, as he now is foul,

       And lifted up his brow against his Maker,

       Well may proceed from him all tribulation.

      O, what a marvel it appeared to me,

       When I beheld three faces on his head!

       The one in front, and that vermilion was;

      Two were the others, that were joined with this

       Above the middle part of either shoulder,

       And they were joined together at the crest;

      And the right-hand one seemed 'twixt white and yellow;

       The left was such to look upon as those

       Who come from where the Nile falls valley-ward.

      Underneath each came forth two mighty wings,

       Such as befitting were so great a bird;

       Sails of the sea I never saw so large.

      No feathers had they, but as of a bat

       Their fashion was; and he was waving them,

       So that three winds proceeded forth therefrom.

      Thereby Cocytus wholly was congealed.

       With six eyes did he weep, and down three chins

       Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.

      At СКАЧАТЬ