Innocence Once Lost - Religious Classics Collection. Джон Мильтон

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СКАЧАТЬ every mouth he with his teeth was crunching

       A sinner, in the manner of a brake,

       So that he three of them tormented thus.

      To him in front the biting was as naught

       Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine

       Utterly stripped of all the skin remained.

      "That soul up there which has the greatest pain,"

       The Master said, "is Judas Iscariot;

       With head inside, he plies his legs without.

      Of the two others, who head downward are,

       The one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus;

       See how he writhes himself, and speaks no word.

      And the other, who so stalwart seems, is Cassius.

       But night is reascending, and 'tis time

       That we depart, for we have seen the whole."

      As seemed him good, I clasped him round the neck,

       And he the vantage seized of time and place,

       And when the wings were opened wide apart,

      He laid fast hold upon the shaggy sides;

       From fell to fell descended downward then

       Between the thick hair and the frozen crust.

      When we were come to where the thigh revolves

       Exactly on the thickness of the haunch,

       The Guide, with labour and with hard-drawn breath,

      Turned round his head where he had had his legs,

       And grappled to the hair, as one who mounts,

       So that to Hell I thought we were returning.

      "Keep fast thy hold, for by such stairs as these,"

       The Master said, panting as one fatigued,

       "Must we perforce depart from so much evil."

      Then through the opening of a rock he issued,

       And down upon the margin seated me;

       Then tow'rds me he outstretched his wary step.

      I lifted up mine eyes and thought to see

       Lucifer in the same way I had left him;

       And I beheld him upward hold his legs.

      And if I then became disquieted,

       Let stolid people think who do not see

       What the point is beyond which I had passed.

      "Rise up," the Master said, "upon thy feet;

       The way is long, and difficult the road,

       And now the sun to middle-tierce returns."

      It was not any palace corridor

       There where we were, but dungeon natural,

       With floor uneven and unease of light.

      "Ere from the abyss I tear myself away,

       My Master," said I when I had arisen,

       "To draw me from an error speak a little;

      Where is the ice? and how is this one fixed

       Thus upside down? and how in such short time

       From eve to morn has the sun made his transit?"

      And he to me: "Thou still imaginest

       Thou art beyond the centre, where I grasped

       The hair of the fell worm, who mines the world.

      That side thou wast, so long as I descended;

       When round I turned me, thou didst pass the point

       To which things heavy draw from every side,

      And now beneath the hemisphere art come

       Opposite that which overhangs the vast

       Dry-land, and 'neath whose cope was put to death

      The Man who without sin was born and lived.

       Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphere

       Which makes the other face of the Judecca.

      Here it is morn when it is evening there;

       And he who with his hair a stairway made us

       Still fixed remaineth as he was before.

      Upon this side he fell down out of heaven;

       And all the land, that whilom here emerged,

       For fear of him made of the sea a veil,

      And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure

       To flee from him, what on this side appears

       Left the place vacant here, and back recoiled."

      A place there is below, from Beelzebub

       As far receding as the tomb extends,

       Which not by sight is known, but by the sound

      Of a small rivulet, that there descendeth

       Through chasm within the stone, which it has gnawed

       With course that winds about and slightly falls.

      The Guide and I into that hidden road

       Now entered, to return to the bright world;

       And without care of having any rest

      We mounted up, he first and I the second,

       Till I beheld through a round aperture

       Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;

      Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.

Purgatorio

       Table of Contents

       I. The Shores of Purgatory. The Four СКАЧАТЬ