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

going, and the other coming,
And weeping they return to their first songs,
And to the cry that most befitteth them;
And close to me approached, even as before,
The very same who had entreated me,
Attent to listen in their countenance.
I, who their inclination twice had seen,
Began: “O souls secure in the possession,
Whene’er it may be, of a state of peace,
Neither unripe nor ripened have remained
My members upon earth, but here are with me
With their own blood and their articulations.
I go up here to be no longer blind;
A Lady is above, who wins this grace,1042
Whereby the mortal through your world I bring.
But as your greatest longing satisfied
May soon become, so that the Heaven may house you1043
Which full of love is, and most amply spreads,
Tell me, that I again in books may write it,
Who are you, and what is that multitude
Which goes upon its way behind your backs?”
Not otherwise with wonder is bewildered
The mountaineer, and staring round is dumb,
When rough and rustic to the town he goes,
Than every shade became in its appearance;
But when they of their stupor were disburdened,
Which in high hearts is quickly quieted,
“Blessed be thou, who of our border-lands,”
He recommenced who first had questioned us,
“Experience freightest for a better life.
The folk that comes not with us have offended
In that for which once Caesar, triumphing,
Heard himself called in contumely, ‘Queen.’1044
Therefore they separate, exclaiming, ‘Sodom!’
Themselves reproving, even as thou hast heard,
And add unto their burning by their shame.
Our own transgression was hermaphrodite;
But because we observed not human law,
Following like unto beasts our appetite,
In our opprobrium by us is read,
When we part company, the name of her
Who bestialized herself in bestial wood.1045
Now knowest thou our acts, and what our crime was;
Wouldst thou perchance by name know who we are,
There is not time to tell, nor could I do it.
Thy wish to know me shall in sooth be granted;
I’m Guido Guinicelli, and now purge me,1046
Having repented ere the hour extreme.”
The same that in the sadness of Lycurgus1047
Two sons became, their mother re-beholding,
Such I became, but rise not to such height,
The moment I heard name himself the father
Of me and of my betters, who had ever
Practised the sweet and gracious rhymes of love;
And without speech and hearing thoughtfully
For a long time I went, beholding him,
Nor for the fire did I approach him nearer.
When I was fed with looking, utterly
Myself I offered ready for his service,
With affirmation that compels belief.
And he to me: “Thou leavest footprints such
In me, from what I hear, and so distinct,
Lethe cannot efface them, nor make dim.
But if thy words just now the truth have sworn,
Tell me what is the cause why thou displayest
In word and look that dear thou holdest me?”
And I to him: “Those dulcet lays of yours
Which, long as shall endure our modern fashion,
Shall make forever dear their very ink!”
“O brother,” said he, “he whom I point out,”
And here he pointed at a spirit in front,
“Was of the mother tongue a better smith.
Verses of love and proses of romance,1048
He mastered all; and let the idiots talk,
Who think the Lemosin surpasses him.1049
To clamor more than truth they turn their faces,
And in this way establish their opinion,
Ere art or reason has by them been heard.
Thus many ancients with Guittone did,1050
From cry to cry still giving him applause,
Until the truth has conquered with most persons.
Now, if thou hast such ample privilege
’Tis granted thee to go unto the cloister
Wherein is Christ the abbot of the college,
To him repeat for me a Paternoster,
So far as needful to us of this world,
Where power of sinning is no longer ours.”
Then, to give place perchance to one behind,
Whom he had near, he vanished in the fire
As fish in water going to the bottom.
I moved a little tow’rds him pointed out,
And said that to his name my own desire1051
An honorable place was making ready.
He of his own free will began to say:
Tan m’ abellis vostre cortes deman,
Que jeu nom’ puesc ni vueill a vos cobrire;
Jeu sui Arnaut, que plor e vai chantan;1052
Consiros vei la passada folor,
E vei jauzen lo jorn qu’ esper denan.
Ara vus prec per aquella valor,
Que vus condus al som de la scalina,
Sovenga vus a temprar ma dolor.1053
Then hid him in the fire that purifies them. Canto XXVII

Dante’s sleep upon the stairway, and his dream of Leah⁠—Arrival at the Terrestrial Paradise.

As when he vibrates forth his earliest rays,1054
In regions where his Maker shed his blood,1055
(The Ebro falling under lofty Libra,
And waters in the Ganges burnt with noon,)
So stood the Sun; hence was the day departing,
When the glad Angel of God appeared to us.
Outside the flame he stood upon the verge,
And chanted forth, “Beati mundo corde,”1056
In voice by far more living than our own.
Then: “No one farther goes, souls sanctified,
If first the fire bite not; within it enter,
And be not deaf unto the song beyond.”
When we were close beside him thus he said;
Wherefore e’en such became I, when I heard him,
As he is who is put into the grave.
Upon my clasped hands I straightened me,1057
Scanning the fire, and vividly recalling
The human bodies I had once seen burned.
Towards me turned themselves my good Conductors,
And unto me Virgilius said: “My son,
Here may indeed be torment, but not death.
Remember