Данте Алигьери – The Divine Comedy / Божественная комедия (страница 31)

35 And if you wish me to sit down with you,

I will, if he please, for I go with him.”

“O son,” he said, “whoever of this herd

A moment stops, lies then a hundred years,

Nor fans himself when smiteth him the fire.

40 Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come,

And afterward will I rejoin my band,

Which goes lamenting its eternal doom.”

I did not dare to go down from the road

Level to walk with him; but my head bowed

45 I held as one who goeth reverently.

And he began: “What fortune or what fate

Before the last day leadeth thee down here?

And who is this that showeth thee the way?”

“Up there above us in the life serene,”

50 I answered him, “I lost me in a valley,

Or ever yet my age had been completed.

But yestermorn I turned my back upon it;

This one appeared to me, returning thither,

And homeward leadeth me along this road.”

55 And he to me: “If thou thy star do follow,

Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port,

If well I judged in the life beautiful.

And if I had not died so prematurely,

Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee,

60 I would have given thee comfort in the work.

But that ungrateful and malignant people,

Which of old time from Fesole descended,

And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,

Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe;

65 And it is right; for among crabbed sorbs

It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit.

Old rumour in the world proclaims them blind;

A people avaricious, envious, proud;

Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee.

70 Thy fortune so much honour doth reserve thee,

One party and the other shall be hungry

For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.

Their litter let the beasts of Fesole

Make of themselves, nor let them touch the plant,

75 If any still upon their dunghill rise,

In which may yet revive the consecrated

Seed of those Romans, who remained there when

The nest of such great malice it became.”

“If my entreaty wholly were fulfilled,”

80 Replied I to him, “not yet would you be

In banishment from human nature placed;

For in my mind is fixed, and touches now

My heart the dear and good paternal image

Of you, when in the world from hour to hour

85 You taught me how a man becomes eternal;

And how much I am grateful, while I live

Behoves that in my language be discerned.

What you narrate of my career I write,

And keep it to be glossed with other text

90 By a Lady who can do it, if I reach her.

This much will I have manifest to you;

Provided that my conscience do not chide me,

For whatsoever Fortune I am ready.

Such handsel is not new unto mine ears;

95 Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around

As it may please her, and the churl his mattock.”

My Master thereupon on his right cheek

Did backward turn himself, and looked at me;

Then said: “He listeneth well who noteth it.”