The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

on the ground the good Sordello drew
His finger, saying, “See, this line alone
Thou couldst not pass after the sun is gone;
Not that aught else would hindrance give, however,
To going up, save the nocturnal darkness;
This with the want of power the will perplexes.
We might indeed therewith return below,
And, wandering, walk the hill-side round about,
While the horizon holds the day imprisoned.”
Thereon my Lord, as if in wonder, said:
“Do thou conduct us thither, where thou sayest
That we can take delight in tarrying.”
Little had we withdrawn us from that place,
When I perceived the mount was hollowed out
In fashion as the valleys here are hollowed.
“Thitherward,” said that shade, “will we repair,
Where of itself the hill-side makes a lap,
And there for the new day will we await.”
’Twixt hill and plain there was a winding path632
Which led us to the margin of that dell,
Where dies the border more than half away.
Gold and fine silver, and scarlet and pearl-white,633
The Indian wood resplendent and serene,
Fresh emerald the moment it is broken,
By herbage and by flowers within that hollow
Planted, each one in color would be vanquished,
As by its greater vanquished is the less.
Nor in that place had nature painted only,
But of the sweetness of a thousand odors
Made there a mingled fragrance and unknown.
“Salve Regina,” on the green and flowers634
There seated, singing, spirits I beheld,
Which were not visible outside the valley.
“Before the scanty sun now seeks his nest,”
Began the Mantuan who had led us thither,
“Among them do not wish me to conduct you.
Better from off this ledge the acts and faces
Of all of them will you discriminate,
Than in the plain below received among them.
He who sits highest, and the semblance bears
Of having what he should have done neglected,
And to the others’ song moves not his lips,
Rudolph the Emperor was, who had the power635
To heal the wounds that Italy have slain,
So that through others slowly she revives.
The other, who in look doth comfort him,
Governed the region where the water springs,
The Moldau bears the Elbe, and Elbe the sea.
His name was Ottocar; and in swaddling-clothes636
Far better he than bearded Winceslaus637
His son, who feeds in luxury and ease.
And the small-nosed, who close in council seems638
With him that has an aspect so benign,639
Died fleeing and disflowering the lily;
Look there, how he is beating at his breast!
Behold the other one, who for his cheek
Sighing has made of his own palm a bed;
Father and father-in-law of France’s Pest640
Are they, and know his vicious life and lewd,
And hence proceeds the grief that so doth pierce them.
He who appears so stalwart, and chimes in,641
Singing, with that one of the manly nose,642
The cord of every valor wore begirt;
And if as King had after him remained
The stripling who in rear of him is sitting,643
Well had the valor passed from vase to vase,
Which cannot of the other heirs be said.
Frederick and Jacomo possess the realms,
But none the better heritage possesses.
Not oftentimes upriseth through the branches644
The probity of man; and this He wills
Who gives it, so that we may ask of Him.
Eke to the large-nosed reach my words, no less645
Than to the other, Pier, who with him sings;
Whence Provence and Apulia grieve already646
The plant is as inferior to its seed,
As more than Beatrice and Margaret647
Costanza boasteth of her husband still.648
Behold the monarch of the simple life,
Harry of England, sitting there alone;649
He in his branches has a better issue.
He who the lowest on the ground among them
Sits looking upward, is the Marquis William,650
For whose sake Alessandria and her war651
Make Monferrat and Canavese weep.” Canto VIII

The Guardian Angels and the serpent⁠—Nino di Gallura⁠—Currado Malaspina.

’Twas now the hour that turneth back desire652
In those who sail the sea, and melts the heart,
The day they’ve said to their sweet friends farewell,
And the new pilgrim penetrates with love,653
If he doth hear from far away a bell
That seemeth to deplore the dying day,654
When I began to make of no avail
My hearing, and to watch one of the souls
Uprisen, that begged attention with its hand.
It joined and lifted upward both its palms,
Fixing its eyes upon the orient,
As if it said to God, “Naught else I care for.”
“Te lucis ante” so devoutly issued655
Forth from its mouth, and with such dulcet notes,
It made me issue forth from my own mind.
And then the others, sweetly and devoutly,
Accompanied it through all the hymn entire,
Having their eyes on the supernal wheels.
Here, Reader, fix thine eyes well on the truth,
For now indeed so subtle is the veil,
Surely to penetrate within is easy.
I saw that army of the gentle-born
Thereafterward in silence upward gaze,
As if in expectation, pale and humble;
And from on high come forth and down descend,
I saw two Angels with two flaming swords,656
Truncated and deprived of their points.657
Green as the little leaflets just now born658
Their garments were, which, by their verdant pinions
Beaten and blown abroad, they trailed behind.
One just above us came to take his station,
And one descended to the opposite bank,
So that the people were contained between them.
Clearly in them discerned I the blond head;
But in their faces was the eye bewildered,
As faculty confounded by excess.
“From Mary’s bosom both of them have come,”
Sordello said, “as