Dante - Dante's " Inferno" Translations By Twenty Contemporary Poets - Paperback

Binding: Paperback
Description: In the middle of the journey of our life < BR" found myself astray in a dark wood where the straight road had been lost sight of. How hard it is to say what it was like in the thick of thickets in a wood so dense and gnarled the very thought of it renews my panic. It is bitter almost as death itself is bitter. But to rehearse the good it also brought me < BR" will speak about the other things I saw there. How I got into it I cannot clearly say for I was moving like a sleepwalker the moment I stepped out of the right way But when I came to the bottom of a hill standing off at the far end of that valley where a great terror had disheartened me < P" looked up and saw how its shoulders glowed already in the rays of the planet which leads and keeps men straight on every road. Then I sensed a quiet influence settling into those depths in me that had been rocked and pitifully troubled all night long And as a survivor gasping on the sand turns his head back to study in a daze the dangerous combers so my mind Turned back although it was reeling forward back to inspect a pass that had proved fatal heretofore to everyone who entered. < P" rested a little then for I was weary then began to climb up the waste slopes once more with my firm foot always the lower one beneath me When suddenly the spotted fluent shape of a leopard crossed my path not far up from the bottom of the slope Harrying me confronting my advance loping round me leaping in my face so that I turned back downhill more than once. The morning was beginning all above the sun was rising up among the stars that rose with him when the Divine Love First set those lovely things in motion so I was encouraged to face with better hope the beast skipping in its merry skin By the time of day the sweetness of the season: but not enough not to be frightened by the sudden apparition of a lion That came for me with his head in the air and so maddened by hunger that it seemed the air itself was bristling with fear. And a she - wolf so thin she looked as if all her appetites were gnawing at her. She had already brought many to grief And I was so overcome at the sight of her my courage broke and I immediately lost heart in climbing the mountain any farther. And as somebody who thinks he is going to win every time will be the most distressed one whenever his turn comes to be the loser < P" was like that as I retreated from the animal's turbulent head - on attack gradually to where the sun is dumb. While I was slipping back about to sink back to the depths I caught sight of one who seemed through a long silence indistinct. When I saw him in that great waste land < BR" cried out to him " Pity me whatever you are shade or a living man." He answered me " No not a living man though I was once alive and had Lombards for parents both of them Mantuan. Although I was born sub Julio my prime was spent in the heyday of the false gods when I lived in Rome in good Augustus time. < P" was a poet and I sang of that just son of Anchises who came out of Troy after the burning of proud Ilion. But why doyou face back into misery? Why do you not keep on up the sweet hill the source and cause of all felicity?" " Oh are you then Virgil are you the fountainhead of that wide river of speech constantly brimming?" < BR" answered and for shame kept my head bowed. " You are the light and glory of other poets. 0 let it avail me now the long devotion that made me love your book and cleave to it. You are my master my authority. < BR" learned from you and from you alone the illustrious style for which they honor me. Look at the beast that has forced me to turn back. Help me 0 famous sage to confront her for she makes my veins race and my pulses shake." " You will have to go another way around " he answered when he saw me weeping "to escape the toils and thickets of this ground; Because this animal you are troubled by lets no man pass but harasses him until she kills him by her savagery And she is so consumed by viciousness hat nothing fills her and so insatiable that feeding only makes her ravenous. There are many animals she couples with and there will be more of them until the Hound shall come and grind her in the jaws of death. He will not glut himself on ground or riches but wisdom love and virtue will sustain him and the two Feltros will vie to be his birthplace. To humble Italy for which the virgin Camilla died bleeding and Turnus died and Nisus and Euryalus he will bring salvation. He will pursue the wolf through every town until he has hunted and hounded her to hell where envy unleashed her first and set heron. Therefore for your own good I think the best course is to follow me and I will be your guide and lead you from here through an eternal place Where you will hear desperate screaming and will see those long - lost spirits in torment suffering the second death in perpetuity. And then you will see those who are not distressed in the fire because they hope to come whenever their time comes among the blessed. If you want to ascend among these then you will be guided by a soul worthier than I and I will leave you with her when I go; For that Emperor above does not allow me or my like to come into His city because I was a rebel to His law. His empire is everywhere but His high seat and city are there in His proper kingdom. 0 happy is the man He calls to it." And I said to him " I ask you poet in the name of that God you were ignorant of and to help me to escape my own worst fate Lead me to that place described by you so that I may see St. Peter's Gate and those other ones you spoke of in their sorrow." Then he set off and I began to follow.
Title: Dante's " Inferno" Translations By Twenty Contemporary Poets
Author(s): Dante, Daniel Halpern
Publisher: W W Norton & Co Ltd
Barcode: 9780880013734
Pages: 216 Pages
Publication Date: 4/1/1994
Category: Poetry Anthologies (Various Poets)