OFT have I seen at some cathedral door A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, Far off the noises of the world retreat; So, as I enter here from day to day, And leave my burden at this minster gate, The tumult of the time disconsola e To inarticulate murmurs dies away, While the eternal ages watch and wait. How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers ! But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves Ah! from what agonies of hear, and brain, What exultations trampling on despair, What tender css, what tears, what hate of wrong, What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, Uprose this poem of the earth and air, This medieval miracle of song! INFERNO. CANTO I. MIDWAY upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. What was this forest savage, rough, and stern, But of the good to treat, which there I found, So full was I of slumber at the moment At that point where the valley terminated, Which had with consternation pierced my heart, Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders, Vested already with that planet's rays That in my heart's lake had endured throughout The way resumed I on the desert slope, And lo! almost where the ascent began, A panther light and swift exceedingly, Which with a spotted skin was covered o'er! And never moved she from before my face, Nay, rather did impede so much my way, And up the sun was mounting with those stars But not so much, that did not give me fear With head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger, Seemed to be laden in her meagreness, With the affright that from her aspect came, And as he is who willingly acquires, And the time comes that causes him to lose, Which, coming on against me by degrees Before mine eyes did one present himself, When I beheld him in the desert vast, "Have pity on me," unto him I cried, "Whiche'er thou art, or shade or real man!" He answered me: "Not man; man once I was, And both my parents were of Lombardy, And Mantuans by country both of them. Sub Julio was I born, though it was late, And lived at Rome under the good Augustus, A poet was I, and I sang that just Son of Anchises, who came forth from Troy, 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 . 75 But thou, why goest thou back to such annoyance? Which spreads abroad so wide a river of speech ?" "O, of the other poets honour and light, Avail me the long study and great love Thou art alone the one from whom I took Responded he, when he beheld me weeping, Suffers not any one to pass her way, But so doth harass him, that she destroys him; And has a nature so malign and ruthless, That never doth she glut her greedy will, Many the animals with whom she weds, And more they shall be still, until the Greyhound He shall not feed on either earth or pelf, But upon wisdom, and on love and virtue; Of that low Italy shall he be the saviour, On whose account the maid Camilla died, Euryalus, Turnus, Nisus, of their wounds; Through every city shall he hunt her down, Until he shall have driven her back to Hell, Thou follow me, and I will be thy guide, Within the fire, because they hope to come, |