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

worthier786
Than other food for human use created,
It first directeth its impoverished way.
Curs findeth it thereafter, coming downward,787
More snarling than their puissance demands,
And turns from them disdainfully its muzzle.
It goes on falling, and the more it grows,
The more it finds the dogs becoming wolves,788
This maledict and misadventurous ditch.
Descended then through many a hollow gulf,
It finds the foxes so replete with fraud,789
They fear no cunning that may master them.
Nor will I cease because another hears me;
And well ’twill be for him, if still he mind him
Of what a truthful spirit to me unravels.790
Thy grandson I behold, who doth become791
A hunter of those wolves upon the bank
Of the wild stream, and terrifies them all.
He sells their flesh, it being yet alive;
Thereafter slaughters them like ancient beeves;
Many of life, himself of praise, deprives.
Blood-stained he issues from the dismal forest;792
He leaves it such, a thousand years from now
In its primeval state ’tis not re-wooded.”
As at the announcement of impending ills
The face of him who listens is disturbed,
From whate’er side the peril seize upon him;
So I beheld that other soul, which stood
Turned round to listen, grow disturbed and sad,
When it had gathered to itself the word.
The speech of one and aspect of the other
Had me desirous made to know their names,
And question mixed with prayers I made thereof,
Whereat the spirit which first spake to me
Began again: “Thou wishest I should bring me
To do for thee what thou’lt not do for me;
But since God willeth that in thee shine forth
Such grace of his, I’ll not be chary with thee;
Know, then, that I Guido del Duca am.793
My blood was so with envy set on fire,
That if I had beheld a man make merry,
Thou wouldst have seen me sprinkled o’er with pallor.
From my own sowing such the straw I reap!
O human race! why dost thou set thy heart
Where interdict of partnership must be?794
This is Renier; this is the boast and honor795
Of the house of Calboli, where no one since
Has made himself the heir of his desert.
And not alone his blood is made devoid,
’Twixt Po and mount, and sea-shore and the Reno,796
Of good required for truth and for diversion;797
For all within these boundaries is full
Of venomous roots, so that too tardily
By cultivation now would they diminish.
Where is good Lizio, and Arrigo Manardi,798
Pier Traversaro, and Guido di Carpigna,799
O Romagnuoli into bastards turned?
When in Bologna will a Fabbro rise?800
When in Faenza a Bernardin di Fosco,801
The noble scion of ignoble seed?
Be not astonished, Tuscan, if I weep,
When I remember, with Guido da Prata,802
Ugolin d’ Azzo, who was living with us,
Frederick Tignoso and his company,803
The house of Traversara, and th’ Anastagi,804
And one race and the other is extinct;
The dames and cavaliers, the toils and ease805
That filled our souls with love and courtesy,
There where the hearts have so malicious grown!
O Brettinoro! why dost thou not flee,806
Seeing that all thy family is gone,
And many people, not to be corrupted?
Bagnacaval does well in not begetting807
And ill does Castrocaro, and Conio worse,
In taking trouble to beget such Counts.
Will do well the Pagani, when their Devil808
Shall have departed; but not therefore pure
Will testimony of them e’er remain.
O Ugolin de’ Fantoli, secure809
Thy name is, since no longer is awaited
One who, degenerating, can obscure it!
But go now, Tuscan, for it now delights me
To weep far better than it does to speak,
So much has our discourse my mind distressed.”
We were aware that those beloved souls
Heard us depart; therefore, by keeping silent,
They made us of our pathway confident.
When we became alone by going onward,
Thunder, when it doth cleave the air, appeared
A voice, that counter to us came, exclaiming:810
“Shall slay me whosoever findeth me!”811
And fled as the reverberation dies
If suddenly the cloud asunder bursts.
As soon as hearing had a truce from this,
Behold another, with so great a crash,
That it resembled thunderings following fast:
“I am Aglaurus, who became a stone!”812
And then, to press myself close to the Poet,
I backward, and not forward, took a step.
Already on all sides the air was quiet;
And said he to me: “That was the hard curb
That ought to hold a man within his bounds;
But you take in the bait so that the hook
Of the old Adversary draws you to him,
And hence availeth little curb or call.813
The heavens are calling you, and wheel around you,814
Displaying to you their eternal beauties,
And still your eye is looking on the ground;815
Whence He, who all discerns, chastises you.” Canto XV

The Third Circle⁠—The Irascible.

As much as ’twixt the close of the third hour816
And dawn of day appeareth of that sphere
Which aye in fashion of a child is playing,
So much it now appeared, towards the night,
Was of his course remaining to the sun;
There it was evening, and ’twas midnight here;
And the rays smote the middle of our faces,
Because by us the mount was so encircled,
That straight towards the west we now were going;
When I perceived my forehead overpowered
Beneath the splendor far more than at first,
And stupor were to me the things unknown;
Whereat towards the summit of my brow
I raised my hands, and made myself the visor