| |
| FLORENCE, exult! for thou so mightily | |
| Hast thriven, that o’er land and sea thy wings | |
| Thou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell. | |
| Among the plunderers, such the three I found | |
| Thy citizens; whence shame to me thy son, | 5 |
| And no proud honour to thyself redounds. | |
| But if our minds, when dreaming near the dawn, | |
| Are of the truth presageful, thou ere long | |
| Shalt feel what Prato 1 (not to say the rest) | |
| Would fain might come upon thee; and that chance | 10 |
| Were in good time, if it befell thee now. | |
| Would so it were, since it must needs befall! | |
| For as time wears me, I shall grieve the more. | |
| We from the depth departed; and my guide | |
| Remounting scaled the flinty steps, which late | 15 |
| We downward traced, and drew me up the steep. | |
| Pursuing thus our solitary way | |
| Among the crags and splinters of the rock, | |
| Sped not our feet without the help of hands. | |
| Then sorrow seized me, which e’en now revives, | 20 |
| As my thought turns again to what I saw, | |
| And, more than I am wont, I rein and curb | |
| The powers of nature in me, lest they run | |
| Where Virtue guides not; that, if aught of good | |
| My gentle star or something better gave me, | 25 |
| I envy not myself the precious boon. | |
| As in that season, when the sun least veils | |
| His face that lightens all, what time the fly | |
| Gives way to the shrill gnat, the peasant then, | |
| Upon some cliff reclined, beneath him sees | 30 |
| Fire-flies innumerous spangling o’er the vale, | |
| Vineyard or tilth, where his day-labor lies; | |
| With flames so numberless throughout its space | |
| Shone the eighth chasm, apparent, when the depth | |
| Was to my view exposed. As he, whose wrongs | 35 |
| The bears avenged, as its departure saw | |
| Elijah’s chariot, when the steeds erect | |
| Raised their steep flight for heaven; his eyes meanwhile, | |
| Straining pursued them, till the flame alone, | |
| Upsoaring like a misty speck, he kenn’d: | 40 |
| E’en thus along the gulf moves every flame, | |
| A sinner so enfolded close in each, | |
| That none exhibits token of the theft. | |
| Upon the bridge I forward bent to look | |
| And grasp’d a flinty mass, or else had fallen, | 45 |
| Though push’d not from the height. The guide, who mark’d | |
| How I did gaze attentive, thus began: | |
| “Within these ardours are the spirits; each | |
| Swatched in confining fire.” “Master! thy word,” | |
| I answer’d, “hath assured me; yet I deem’d | 50 |
| Already of the truth, already wish’d | |
| To ask thee who is in yon fire, that comes | |
| So parted at the summit, as it seem’d | |
| Ascending from that funeral pile 2 where lay | |
| The Theban brothers.” He replied: “Within, | 55 |
| Ulysses there and Diomede endure | |
| Their penal tortures, thus to vengeance now | |
| Together hasting, as erewhile to wrath | |
| These in the flame with ceaseless groans deplore | |
| The ambush of the horse, 3 that open’d wide | 60 |
| A portal for the goodly seed to pass, | |
| Which sow’d imperial Rome; nor less the guile | |
| Lament they, whence, of her Achilles ’reft, | |
| Deidamia yet in death complains. | |
| And there is rued the stratagem that Troy | 65 |
| Of her Palladium spoil’d.”—“If they have power | |
| Of utterance from within these sparks,” said I, | |
| “O master! think my prayer a thousand-fold | |
| In repetition urged, that thou vouchsafe | |
| To pause till here the horned flame arrive. | 70 |
| See, how toward it with desires I bend.” | |
| He thus: “Thy prayer is worthy of much praise, | |
| And I accept it therefore; but do thou | |
| Thy tongue refrain: to question them be mine; | |
| For I divine thy wish: and they perchance, | 75 |
| For they were Greeks, 4 might shun discourse with thee.” | |
| When there the flame had come, where time and place | |
| Seem’d fitting to my guide, he thus began: | |
| “O ye, who dwell two spirits in one fire! | |
| If, living, I of you did merit aught, | 80 |
| Whate’er the measure were of that desert, | |
| When in the world my lofty strain I pour’d, | |
| Move ye not on, till one of you unfold | |
| In what clime death o’ertook him self-destroy’d.” | |
| Of the old flame forthwith the greater horn | 85 |
| Began to roll, murmuring, as a fire | |
| That labors with the wind, then to and fro | |
| Wagging the top, as a tongue uttering sounds, | |
| Threw out its voice, and spake: “When I escaped | |
| From Circe, who beyond a circling year | 90 |
| Had held me near Caieta by her charms, | |
| Ere thus Æneas yet had named the shore; | |
| Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence | |
| Of my old father, nor return of love, | |
| That should have crown’d Penelope with joy, | 95 |
| Could overcome in me the zeal I had | |
| To explore the world, and search the ways of life, | |
| Man’s evil and his virtue. Forth I sail’d | |
| Into the deep illimitable main, | |
| With but one bark, and the small faithful band | 100 |
| That yet cleaved to me. As Iberia far, | |
| Far as Marocco, either shore I saw, | |
| And the Sardinian and each isle beside | |
| Which round that ocean bathes. Tardy with age | |
| Were I and my companions, when we came | 105 |
| To the strait pass, 5 where Hercules ordain’d | |
| The boundaries not to be o’erstepp’d by man. | |
| The walls of Seville to my right I left, | |
| On the other hand already Ceuta past. | |
| ‘O brothers!’ I began, ‘who to the west | 110 |
| Through perils without number now have reach’d; | |
| To this the short remaining watch, that yet | |
| Our senses have to wake, refuse not proof | |
| Of the unpeopled world, following the track | |
| Of Phœbus. Call to mind from whence ye sprang: | 115 |
| Ye were not form’d to live the life of brutes, | |
| But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.’ | |
| With these few words I sharpen’d for the voyage | |
| The mind of my associates, that I then | |
| Could scarcely have withheld them. To the dawn | 120 |
| Our poop we turn’d, and for the witless flight | |
| Made our oars wings, still gaining on the left. | |
| Each star of the other pole night now beheld, | |
| And ours so low, that from the ocean floor | |
| It rose not. Five times reillumed, as oft | 125 |
| Vanish’d the light from underneath the moon, | |
| Since the deep way we enter’d, when from far | |
| Appear’d a mountain dim, 6 loftiest methought | |
| Of all I e’er beheld. Joy seized us straight; | |
| But soon to mourning changed. From the new land | 130 |
| A whirlwind sprung, and at her foremost side | |
| Did strike the vessel. Thrice it whirl’d her round | |
| With all the waves; the fourth time lifted up | |
| The poop, and sank the prow: so fate decreed: | |
| And over us the booming billow closed.” 7 | 135 |
