The Battle of Darkness and Light . Джон Мильтон

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      Leave me to speak, because I have conceived

       That which thou wishest; for they might disdain

       Perchance, since they were Greeks, discourse of thine."

      When now the flame had come unto that point,

       Where to my Leader it seemed time and place,

       After this fashion did I hear him speak:

      "O ye, who are twofold within one fire,

       If I deserved of you, while I was living,

       If I deserved of you or much or little

      When in the world I wrote the lofty verses,

       Do not move on, but one of you declare

       Whither, being lost, he went away to die."

      Then of the antique flame the greater horn,

       Murmuring, began to wave itself about

       Even as a flame doth which the wind fatigues.

      Thereafterward, the summit to and fro

       Moving as if it were the tongue that spake,

       It uttered forth a voice, and said: "When I

      From Circe had departed, who concealed me

       More than a year there near unto Gaeta,

       Or ever yet Aeneas named it so,

      Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence

       For my old father, nor the due affection

       Which joyous should have made Penelope,

      Could overcome within me the desire

       I had to be experienced of the world,

       And of the vice and virtue of mankind;

      But I put forth on the high open sea

       With one sole ship, and that small company

       By which I never had deserted been.

      Both of the shores I saw as far as Spain,

       Far as Morocco, and the isle of Sardes,

       And the others which that sea bathes round about.

      I and my company were old and slow

       When at that narrow passage we arrived

       Where Hercules his landmarks set as signals,

      That man no farther onward should adventure.

       On the right hand behind me left I Seville,

       And on the other already had left Ceuta.

      'O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand

       Perils,' I said, 'have come unto the West,

       To this so inconsiderable vigil

      Which is remaining of your senses still

       Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge,

       Following the sun, of the unpeopled world.

      Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;

       Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,

       But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.'

      So eager did I render my companions,

       With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,

       That then I hardly could have held them back.

      And having turned our stern unto the morning,

       We of the oars made wings for our mad flight,

       Evermore gaining on the larboard side.

      Already all the stars of the other pole

       The night beheld, and ours so very low

       It did not rise above the ocean floor.

      Five times rekindled and as many quenched

       Had been the splendour underneath the moon,

       Since we had entered into the deep pass,

      When there appeared to us a mountain, dim

       From distance, and it seemed to me so high

       As I had never any one beheld.

      Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping;

       For out of the new land a whirlwind rose,

       And smote upon the fore part of the ship.

      Three times it made her whirl with all the waters,

       At the fourth time it made the stern uplift,

       And the prow downward go, as pleased Another,

      Until the sea above us closed again."

      Canto XXVII. Guido da Montefeltro. His deception by Pope Boniface VIII.

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      Already was the flame erect and quiet,

       To speak no more, and now departed from us

       With the permission of the gentle Poet;

      When yet another, which behind it came,

       Caused us to turn our eyes upon its top

       By a confused sound that issued from it.

      As the Sicilian bull (that bellowed first

       With the lament of him, and that was right,

       Who with his file had modulated it)

      Bellowed so with the voice of the afflicted,

       That, notwithstanding it was made of brass,

       Still it appeared with agony transfixed;

      Thus, by not having any way or issue

       At first from out the fire, to its own language

       Converted were the melancholy words.

      But afterwards, when they had gathered way

       Up through the point, giving СКАЧАТЬ