Читать книгу The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso (3 Classic Unabridged Translations in one eBook: Cary's + Longfellow's + Norton's Translation + Original Illustrations by Gustave Doré) - Dante Alighieri - Страница 70

"That face of thine," I answer'd him, "which dead

I once bewail'd, disposes me not less

For weeping, when I see It thus transform'd.

Say then, by Heav'n, what blasts ye thus? The whilst

I wonder, ask not Speech from me: unapt

Is he to speak, whom other will employs."

He thus: "The water and tee plant we pass'd,

Virtue possesses, by th' eternal will

Infus'd, the which so pines me. Every spirit,

Whose song bewails his gluttony indulg'd

Too grossly, here in hunger and in thirst

Is purified. The odour, which the fruit,

And spray, that showers upon the verdure, breathe,

Inflames us with desire to feed and drink.

Nor once alone encompassing our route

We come to add fresh fuel to the pain:

Pain, said I? solace rather: for that will

To the tree leads us, by which Christ was led

To call Elias, joyful when he paid

Our ransom from his vein." I answering thus:

"Forese! from that day, in which the world

For better life thou changedst, not five years

Have circled. If the power of sinning more

Were first concluded in thee, ere thou knew'st

That kindly grief, which re-espouses us

To God, how hither art thou come so soon?

I thought to find thee lower, there, where time

Is recompense for time." He straight replied:

"To drink up the sweet wormwood of affliction

I have been brought thus early by the tears

Stream'd down my Nella's cheeks. Her prayers devout,

Her sighs have drawn me from the coast, where oft

Expectance lingers, and have set me free

From th' other circles. In the sight of God

So much the dearer is my widow priz'd,

She whom I lov'd so fondly, as she ranks

More singly eminent for virtuous deeds.

The tract most barb'rous of Sardinia's isle,

Hath dames more chaste and modester by far

Than that wherein I left her. O sweet brother!

What wouldst thou have me say? A time to come

Stands full within my view, to which this hour

Shall not be counted of an ancient date,

When from the pulpit shall be loudly warn'd

Th' unblushing dames of Florence, lest they bare

Unkerchief'd bosoms to the common gaze.

What savage women hath the world e'er seen,

What Saracens, for whom there needed scourge

Of spiritual or other discipline,

To force them walk with cov'ring on their limbs!

But did they see, the shameless ones, that Heav'n

Wafts on swift wing toward them, while I speak,

Their mouths were op'd for howling: they shall taste

Of Borrow (unless foresight cheat me here)

Or ere the cheek of him be cloth'd with down

Who is now rock'd with lullaby asleep.

Ah! now, my brother, hide thyself no more,

Thou seest how not I alone but all

Gaze, where thou veil'st the intercepted sun."

Whence I replied: "If thou recall to mind

What we were once together, even yet

Remembrance of those days may grieve thee sore.

That I forsook that life, was due to him

Who there precedes me, some few evenings past,

When she was round, who shines with sister lamp

To his, that glisters yonder," and I show'd

The sun. "Tis he, who through profoundest night

Of he true dead has brought me, with this flesh

As true, that follows. From that gloom the aid

Of his sure comfort drew me on to climb,

And climbing wind along this mountain-steep,

Which rectifies in you whate'er the world

Made crooked and deprav'd I have his word,

That he will bear me company as far

As till I come where Beatrice dwells:

But there must leave me. Virgil is that spirit,

Who thus hath promis'd," and I pointed to him;

"The other is that shade, for whom so late

Your realm, as he arose, exulting shook

Through every pendent cliff and rocky bound."