The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.

Thy words have moved my heart to its first purpose. My Guide! My Lord! My Master! Now lead on: 135 one will shall serve the two of us in this.” He turned when I had spoken, and at his back I entered on that hard and perilous track.

Divine Justice transforms and spurs them so 123 their dread turns wish: they yearn for what they fear.

But the stars that marked our starting fall away. We must go deeper into greater pain, for it is not permitted that we stay.”

Like the rest, we shall go for our husks on Judgment Day, but not that we may wear them, for it is not just 105 that a man be given what he throws away.

“Up on your feet! This is no time to tire!” my Master cried. “The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, 50 and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, or ripples on a stream.

At grief so deep the tongue must wag in vain; 5 the language of our sense and memory lacks the vocabulary of such pain.

and since I parted those who should be one in duty and in love, I bear my brain 140 divided from its source within this trunk; and walk here where my evil turns to pain, an eye for an eye to all eternity: thus is the law of Hell observed in me.”

I will tell you this: when a soul betrays as I did, it falls from flesh, and a demon takes its place, 130 ruling the body till its time is spent.

“On march the banners of the King of Hell,” my Master said. “Toward us. Look straight ahead: can you make him out at the core of the frozen shell?”

Do not ask, Reader, how my blood ran cold and my voice choked up with fear. I cannot write it: this is a terror that cannot be told. 25 I did not die, and yet I lost life’s breath: imagine for yourself what I became, deprived at once of both my life and death.

If he was once as beautiful as now 35 he is hideous, and still turned on his Maker, well may he be the source of every woe!

He first, I second, without thought of rest 140 we climbed the dark until we reached the point where a round opening brought in sight the blest and beauteous shining of the Heavenly cars. 143 And we walked out once more beneath the Stars.

For better waters now the little bark of my indwelling powers raises her sails, and leaves behind that sea so cruel and dark.

We strode across that lonely plain like men who seek the road they strayed from and who count the time lost till they find it once again.

“Down on your knees! It is God’s angel comes! Down! Fold your hands! From now on you shall see 30 many such ministers in the high kingdoms. See how he scorns man’s tools: he needs no oars nor any other sail than his own wings to carry him between such distant shores. See how his pinions tower upon the air, 35 pointing to Heaven: they are eternal plumes and do not moult like feathers or human hair.”

Be satisfied with the quia of cause unknown, O humankind! for could you have seen All, Mary need not have suffered to bear a son.

Horrible were my sins, but infinite is the abiding Goodness which holds out Its open arms to all who turn to It.

This last petition, Lord, with grateful mind, we pray not for ourselves who have no need, but for the souls of those we left behind.

A breath of wind is all there is to fame here upon earth: it blows this way and that, and when it changes quarter it changes name.

What, to eternity, is a thousand years? Not so much as the blinking of an eye 108 to the turning of the slowest of the spheres.

This seed I sowed; this sad straw I reap here. O humankind, why do you set your hearts 87 on what it is forbidden you to share?

The Heavens cry to you, and all around your stubborn souls, wheel their eternal glory, and yet you keep your eyes fixed on the ground.

No gloom of Hell, nor of a night allowed 2 no planet under its impoverished sky, the deepest dark that may be drawn by cloud; ever drew such a veil across my face,

The last rays, after which night rules the air, were now so far above us that already the stars began to shine through, here and there.

Then, just as fire yearns upward through the air, being so formed that it aspires by nature 30 to be in its own element up there; so love, which is a spiritual motion, fills the trapped soul, and it can never rest short of the thing that fills it with devotion.

Or put it this way: all love, let us say, that burns in you, springs from necessity; but you still have the power to check its sway.

From there with many a sweet encouragement 125 he led me upward and around the mountain which straightens in you what the world has bent.

“My son,” he said, “you now have seen the torment of the temporal and the eternal fires; here, now, is the limit of my discernment. 130 I have led you here by grace of mind and art;

Expect no more of me in word or deed: 140 here your will is upright, free, and whole, and you would be in error not to heed whatever your own impulse prompts you to: 143 lord of yourself I crown and mitre you.”

to say to Virgil: “There is not within me one drop of blood unstirred. I recognize the tokens of the ancient flame.” But he, he had taken his light from us. He had gone. 50 Virgil had gone. Virgil, the gentle Father to whom I gave my soul for its salvation!

the ice, which hard about my heart had pressed, turned into breath and water, and flowed out through eyes and throat in anguish from my breast.

He fell so far from every hope of bliss that every means of saving him had failed except to let him see the damned. For this I visited the portals of the dead 140 and poured my tears and prayers before that spirit by whom his steps have, up to now, been led.

For just one bite, the First Soul’s tears were spilt 62 five thousand years and more, yearning for Him who suffered in His own flesh for that guilt.

I came back from those holiest waters new, remade, reborn, like a sun-wakened tree that spreads new foliage to the Spring dew 145 in sweetest freshness, healed of Winter’s scars; perfect, pure, and ready for the Stars.

The glory of Him who moves all things rays forth 2 through all the universe, and is reflected from each thing in proportion to its worth.

O good Apollo, for this last task, I pray you make me such a vessel of your powers 15 as you deem worthy to be crowned with bay.

“The elements of all things,” she began, “whatever their mode, 104 observe an inner order. It is this form 105 that makes the universe resemble God.

My course is set for an uncharted sea. Minerva fills my sail. Apollo steers. And nine new Muses point the Pole for me.

“My lady,” I replied, “in every way my being can, I offer up my thanks to Him who raised me from the world of clay.

And thus that Heaven made loveliest in its wheel 131 by many lamps, from the deep mind that turns it takes the image and makes itself the seal.

“Of all creation’s bounty realized, 20 God’s greatest gift, the gift in which mankind is most like Him, the gift by Him most prized, is the freedom He bestowed upon the will.

Be slower to move, Christians, be grave, serene. Do not be like a feather in the wind, 75 nor think that every water washes clean.

For this he wandered, aged, poor, and bent, 140 into the world again; and could the world know what was in his heart that road he went begging his life by crusts from door to door, much as it praises him now, it would praise him more.

the Everlasting Love, whose seal is plain 110 on all the wax of the world was pleased to move in all His ways to raise you up again.

There was not, nor will be, from the first day to the last night, an act so glorious 114 and so magnificent, on either way. 115 For God, in giving Himself that man might be able to raise himself, gave even more than if he had forgiven him in mercy.

But the Supreme Beneficence inspires your life directly, filling it with love of what has made it, so that it desires 145 that love forever.—And from this you may infer the sure proof of your resurrection, if you once more consider in what way man’s flesh was given being like no other when He made our first father and first mother.”

The heart of mortal never could so move to its devotion, nor so willingly offer itself to God in thankful love, as mine did when these words had passed her lips. So wholly did I give my love to Him 60 that she sank to oblivion in eclipse.

for I have seen a briar through winter’s snows rattle its tough and menacing bare stems, 135 and then, in season, open its pale rose;

As, pole to pole, the arch of the Milky Way so glows, pricked out by greater and lesser stars, that sages stare, not knowing what to say— 100 so constellated, deep within that Sphere, the two rays formed into the holy sign