Данте Алигьери – The Divine Comedy / Божественная комедия (страница 9)

100 And more of honour still, much more, they did me,

In that they made me one of their own band;

So that the sixth was I, 'mid so much wit.

Thus we went on as far as to the light,

Things saying 'tis becoming to keep silent,

105 As was the saying of them where I was.

We came unto a noble castle's foot,

Seven times encompassed with lofty walls,

Defended round by a fair rivulet;

This we passed over even as firm ground;

110 Through portals seven I entered with these Sages;

We came into a meadow of fresh verdure.

People were there with solemn eyes and slow,

Of great authority in their countenance;

They spake but seldom, and with gentle voices.

115 Thus we withdrew ourselves upon one side

Into an opening luminous and lofty,

So that they all of them were visible.

There opposite, upon the green enamel,

Were pointed out to me the mighty spirits,

120 Whom to have seen I feel myself exalted.

I saw Electra with companions many,

'Mongst whom I knew both Hector and Aeneas,

Caesar in armour with gerfalcon eyes;

I saw Camilla and Penthesilea

125 On the other side, and saw the King Latinus,

Who with Lavinia his daughter sat;

I saw that Brutus who drove Tarquin forth,

Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia,

And saw alone, apart, the Saladin.

130 When I had lifted up my brows a little,

The Master I beheld of those who know,

Sit with his philosophic family.

All gaze upon him, and all do him honour.

There I beheld both Socrates and Plato,

135 Who nearer him before the others stand;

Democritus, who puts the world on chance,

Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales,

Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus;

Of qualities I saw the good collector,

140 Hight Dioscorides; and Orpheus saw I,

Tully and Livy, and moral Seneca,

Euclid, geometrician, and Ptolemy,

Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna,

Averroes, who the great Comment made.

145 I cannot all of them pourtray in full,

Because so drives me onward the long theme,

That many times the word comes short of fact.

The sixfold company in two divides;

Another way my sapient Guide conducts me

150 Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles;

And to a place I come where nothing shines.

Canto V

Thus I descended out of the first circle

Down to the second, that less space begirds,

And so much greater dole, that goads to wailing.

There standeth Minos horribly, and snarls;

5 Examines the transgressions at the entrance;

Judges, and sends according as he girds him.

I say, that when the spirit evil-born

Cometh before him, wholly it confesses;

And this discriminator of transgressions

10 Seeth what place in Hell is meet for it;

Girds himself with his tail as many times

As grades he wishes it should be thrust down.