|
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
|