Читать книгу Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One - Данте Алигьери - Страница 4

CANTO I

ONE night, when half my life behind me lay,

I wandered from the straight lost path afar.

Through the great dark was no releasing way;

Above that dark was no relieving star.

If yet that terrored night I think or say,

As death’s cold hands its fears resuming are.

Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell,

The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot,

I turn my tale to that which next befell,

When the dawn opened, and the night was not.

The hollowed blackness of that waste, God wot,

Shrank, thinned, and ceased. A blinding splendour hot

Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell,

And though it kindled from the nether hell,

Or from the Star that all men leads, alike

It showed me where the great dawn-glories strike

The wide east, and the utmost peaks of snow.

How first I entered on that path astray,

Beset with sleep, I know not. This I know.

When gained my feet the upward, lighted way,

I backward gazed, as one the drowning sea,

The deep strong tides, has baffled, and panting lies,

On the shelved shore, and turns his eyes to see

The league-wide wastes that held him. So mine eyes

Surveyed that fear, the while my wearied frame

Rested, and ever my heart’s tossed lake became

More quiet.

Then from that pass released, which yet

With living feet had no man left, I set

My forward steps aslant the steep, that so,

My right foot still the lower, I climbed.

Below

No more I gazed. Around, a slope of sand

Was sterile of all growth on either hand,

Or moving life, a spotted pard except,

That yawning rose, and stretched, and purred and leapt

So closely round my feet, that scarce I kept

The course I would.

That sleek and lovely thing,

The broadening light, the breath of morn and spring,

The sun, that with his stars in Aries lay,

As when Divine Love on Creation’s day

First gave these fair things motion, all at one

Made lightsome hope; but lightsome hope was none

When down the slope there came with lifted head

And back-blown mane and caverned mouth and red,

A lion, roaring, all the air ashake

That heard his hunger. Upward flight to take

No heart was mine, for where the further way

Mine anxious eyes explored, a she-wolf lay,

That licked lean flanks, and waited. Such was she

In aspect ruthless that I quaked to see,

And where she lay among her bones had brought

So many to grief before, that all my thought

Aghast turned backward to the sunless night

I left. But while I plunged in headlong flight

To that most feared before, a shade, or man

(Either he seemed), obstructing where I ran,

Called to me with a voice that few should know,

Faint from forgetful silence, “Where ye go,

Take heed. Why turn ye from the upward way?”

I cried, “Or come ye from warm earth, or they

The grave hath taken, in my mortal need

Have mercy thou!”

He answered, “Shade am I,

That once was man; beneath the Lombard sky,

In the late years of Julius born, and bred

In Mantua, till my youthful steps were led

To Rome, where yet the false gods lied to man;

And when the great Augustan age began,

I wrote the tale of Ilium burnt, and how

Anchises’ son forth-pushed a venturous prow,

Seeking unknown seas. But in what mood art thou

To thus return to all the ills ye fled,

The while the mountain of thy hope ahead

Lifts into light, the source and cause of all

Delectable things that may to man befall?”

I answered, “Art thou then that Virgil, he

From whom all grace of measured speech in me

Derived? O glorious and far-guiding star!

Now may the love-led studious hours and long

In which I learnt how rich thy wonders are,

Master and Author mine of Light and Song,

Befriend me now, who knew thy voice, that few

Yet hearken. All the name my work hath won

Is thine of right, from whom I learned. To thee,

Abashed, I grant it… Why the mounting sun

No more I seek, ye scarce should ask, who see

The beast that turned me, nor faint hope have I

To force that passage if thine aid deny.”

He answered, “Would ye leave this wild and live,

Strange road is ours, for where the she-wolf lies

Shall no man pass, except the path he tries

Her craft entangle. No way fugitive

Avoids the seeking of her greeds, that give

Insatiate hunger, and such vice perverse

As makes her leaner while she feeds, and worse

Her craving. And the beasts with which she breeds,

The noisome numerous beasts her lusts require,

Bare all the desirable lands in which she feeds;

Nor shall lewd feasts and lewder matings tire

Until she woos, in evil hour for her,

The wolfhound that shall rend her. His desire

Is not for rapine, as the promptings stir

Of her base heart; but wisdoms, and devoirs

Of manhood, and love’s rule, his thoughts prefer.

The Italian lowlands he shall reach and save,

For which Camilla of old, the virgin brave,

Turnus and Nisus died in strife. His chase

He shall not cease, nor any cowering-place

Her fear shall find her, till he drive her back,

From city to city exiled, from wrack to wrack

Slain out of life, to find the native hell

Whence envy loosed her.

For thyself were well

To follow where I lead, and thou shalt see

The spirits in pain, and hear the hopeless woe,

The unending cries, of those whose only plea

Is judgment, that the second death to be

Fall quickly. Further shalt thou climb, and go

To those who burn, but in their pain content

With hope of pardon; still beyond, more high,

Holier than opens to such souls as I,

The Heavens uprear; but if thou wilt, is one

Worthier, and she shall guide thee there, where none

Who did the Lord of those fair realms deny

May enter. There in his city He dwells, and there

Rules and pervades in every part, and calls

His chosen ever within the sacred walls.

O happiest, they!”

I answered, “By that God

Thou didst not know, I do thine aid entreat,

And guidance, that beyond the ills I meet

I safety find, within the Sacred Gate

That Peter guards, and those sad souls to see

Who look with longing for their end to be.”

Then he moved forward, and behind I trod.