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

so little of the road728
In front of me, all Tuscany resounded;
And now he scarce is lisped of in Siena,
Where he was lord, what time was overthrown729
The Florentine delirium, that superb
Was at that day as now ’tis prostitute.
Your reputation is the color of grass
Which comes and goes, and that discolors it
By which it issues green from out the earth.”
And I: “Thy true speech fills my heart with good730
Humility, and great tumor thou assuagest;
But who is he, of whom just now thou spakest?”
“That,” he replied, “is Provenzan Salvani,731
And he is here because he had presumed
To bring Siena all into his hands.
He has gone thus, and goeth without rest
E’er since he died; such money renders back
In payment he who is on earth too daring.”
And I: “If every spirit who awaits
The verge of life before that he repent,
Remains below there and ascends not hither,
(Unless good orison shall him bestead,)
Until as much time as he lived be passed,
How was the coming granted him in largess?”
“When he in greatest splendor lived,” said he,
“Freely upon the Campo of Siena,
All shame being laid aside, he placed himself;
And there to draw his friend from the duress
Which in the prison-house of Charles he suffered,
He brought himself to tremble in each vein.732
I say no more, and know that I speak darkly;
Yet little time shall pass before thy neighbors
Will so demean themselves that thou canst gloss it.733
This action has released him from those confines.” Canto XII

The sculptures on the pavement⁠—Ascent to the Second Circle.

Abreast, like oxen going in a yoke,734
I with that heavy-laden soul went on,
As long as the sweet pedagogue permitted;735
But when he said, “Leave him, and onward pass,
For here ’tis good that with the sail and oars,
As much as may be, each push on his barque”;
Upright, as walking wills it, I redressed
My person, notwithstanding that my thoughts
Remained within me downcast and abashed.
I had moved on, and followed willingly
The footsteps of my Master, and we both
Already showed how light of foot we were,
When unto me he said: “Cast down thine eyes;
’Twere well for thee, to alleviate the way,
To look upon the bed beneath thy feet.”
As, that some memory may exist of them,
Above the buried dead their tombs in earth736
Bear sculptured on them what they were before;
Whence often there we weep for them afresh,
From pricking of remembrance, which alone
To the compassionate doth set its spur;
So saw I there, but of a better semblance
In point of artifice, with figures covered
Whate’er as pathway from the mount projects.
I saw that one who was created noble737
More than all other creatures, down from heaven
Flaming with lightnings fall upon one side.738
I saw Briareus smitten by the dart739
Celestial, lying on the other side,
Heavy upon the earth by mortal frost.
I saw Thymbraeus, Pallas saw, and Mars,740
Still clad in armour round about their father,
Gaze at the scattered members of the giants.
I saw, at foot of his great labor, Nimrod,741
As if bewildered, looking at the people
Who had been proud with him in Sennaar.742
O Niobe! with what afflicted eyes743
Thee I beheld upon the pathway traced,
Between thy seven and seven children slain!744
O Saul! how fallen upon thy proper sword745
Didst thou appear there lifeless in Gilboa,
That felt thereafter neither rain nor dew!746
O mad Arachne! so I thee beheld747
E’en then half spider, sad upon the shreds
Of fabric wrought in evil hour for thee!
O Rehoboam! no more seems to threaten748
Thine image there; but full of consternation
A chariot bears it off, when none pursues!
Displayed moreo’er the adamantine pavement
How unto his own mother made Alcmaeon749
Costly appear the luckless ornament;
Displayed how his own sons did throw themselves
Upon Sennacherib within the temple,750
And how, he being dead, they left him there;
Displayed the ruin and the cruel carnage
That Tomyris wrought, when she to Cyrus said,751
“Blood didst thou thirst for, and with blood I glut thee!”
Displayed how routed fled the Assyrians
After that Holofernes had been slain,752
And likewise the remainder of that slaughter.
I saw there Troy in ashes and in caverns;753
O Ilion! thee, how abject and debased,
Displayed the image that is there discerned!
Who e’er of pencil master was or stile,
That could portray the shades and traits which there
Would cause each subtile genius to admire?
Dead seemed the dead, the living seemed alive;754
Better than I saw not who saw the truth,
All that I trod upon while bowed I went.
Now wax ye proud, and on with looks uplifted,
Ye sons of Eve, and bow not down your faces
So that ye may behold your evil ways!
More of the mount by us was now encompassed,
And far more spent the circuit of the sun,
Than had the mind preoccupied imagined,
When he, who ever watchful in advance
Was going on, began: “Lift up thy head,
’Tis no more time to go thus meditating.
Lo there an Angel who is making haste
To come towards us; lo, returning is
From service of the day the sixth handmaiden.755
With reverence thine acts and looks adorn,
So that he may delight to speed us upward;
Think that this day will never dawn again.”
I was familiar with his admonition
Ever to lose no time; so on this theme
He could not unto me speak covertly.
Towards us came the being beautiful
Vested in white, and in his countenance
Such as