Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)


Mt Purgatorio on the left side of this painting, the city of Florence on the right
Painting by Domenico di Michelino (Florence, 1465)

La Commedia (routinely translated as "The Divine Comedy") is an immortal poem of three books.  The opening lines are great entry points into Dante's "universal" poetry.

Inferno

Midway this way of life we're bound upon,
    I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
    Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

Ay me! how hard to speak of it - that rude
    And rough and stubborn forest! the mere breath
    Of memory stirs the old fear in the blood;

It is so bitter, it goes nigh to death;
    Yet there I gained such good, that, to convey
    The tale, I'll write what else I found therewith.

How I got into it I cannot say,
    Because I was so heavy and full of sleep
    When first I stumbled from the narrow way;

But when at last I stood beneath a steep
    Hill's side, which closed that valley's wandering maze
    Whose dread had pierced me to the heart-root deep,

Then I looked up, and saw the morning rays
    Mantle its shoulder from that planet bright
    Which guides men's feet aright on all their ways;

And this a little quieted the affright
    That lurking in my bosom's lake had lain
    Through the long horror of that piteous night.

                                                              ~ Translation by Dorothy Sayers

Illustration by Gustave Doré

Purgatorio

For better waters, now, the little bark
of my poetic powers hoists its sails,
and leaves behind that cruelest of the seas.

And I shall sing about that second realm
where man's soul goes to purify itself
and become worthy to ascend to Heaven.

Here let death's poetry arise to life,
O Muses sacrosanct whose liege I am!
And let Calliope rise up and play

her sweet accompaniment in the same strain
that pierced the wretched magpies with the truth
of unforgiveable presumptuousness.

The tender tint of orient sapphire,
suffusing the still reaches of the sky,
as far as the horizon deeply clear,

renewed my eye's delight, now that I found
myself free of the deathly atmosphere
that had weighed heavy on my eyes and heart.

The lovely planet kindling love in man
made all the eastern sky smile with her light,
veiling the Fish that shimmered in her train.

                                                           ~ Translation by Mark Musa

Paradiso

The glory of the One who moves all things
    penetrates the universe with light,
    more radiant in one part and elsewhere less:
I have been in that heaven He makes most bright,
    and seen things neither mind can hold nor tongue
    utter, when one descends from such great height,
For as we near the One for whom we long,
    our intellects so plunge into the deep,
    memory cannot follow where we go.
Nevertheless what small part I can keep
    of that holy kingdom treasured in my heart
    will now become the matter of my song.
O good Apollo, for this last work of art,
    make me fit as a vessel of your power
    as you demand when you bestow the crown
Of the beloved laurel. Till this hour
    one peak of twin Parnassus has sufficed,
    but if I am to enter the lists now
I shall need both. Then surge into my breast
    and breathe your song, as when you drew the vain
    Marsvas from the sheath of his own limbs.
   
                                                               ~ Translation of Anthony Esolen

The Inferno by Dante - opening lines

Midway this way of life we're bound upon,
    I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
    Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

by Gustave Dore?

Ay me!  how hard to speak of it - that rude
    And rough and stubborn forest! the mere breath
    Of memory stirs the old fear in the blood;

It is so bitter, it goes nigh to death;
    Yet there I gained such good, that, to convey
    The tale, I'll write what else I found there with.

[Translated by Dorothy Sayers]


IN DANTE'S ITALIAN:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché le diritta via era smarrita.

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!

Tant’ è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte.

The Odyssey - Invocation (by Homer)

Sing, Muse, of that wanderer who sundered
the sacred walls of Troy and traveled
many sea-lanes while struggling for his
life and his men's return.  His men, who
in their folly slew and consumed the holy
Cattle of the Sun, Hyperion, who
therefore spurned their journey home.

Now, Muse, begin the tale of that man
of many masquerades. Sing to us how he,
bereft of hearth and home, pined for his wife
in hallowed Calypso's cave, the divine Nymph,
eager him to wed and bed, but when
the circling seasons ran their wheel, they spun
the thread for his return to Ithaca.

Yet the gods determined that he would not
find his peace at home until all the gods
took pity upon him.  At last all did,
save Poseidon, who grimly blocked the noble
wanderer until the man of masquerades
finally reached his native land, there to
find grim designs waiting for his return.

Sing, Muse, of that man of men and tell me
the story of the man whose own wisdom
and trickery wounded him and caused him
to languish far from the loving arms of
his wife.  Sing to me the story of that
wanderer who sacked Troy and sundered her
heaven-built walls, only to be forced to roam
uncharted seas and visit strange lands
where he faced many grueling trials.

Sing to me of his great adventures among nations
of all manners, minds, fashions, and traditions.
Sing to me of a man, abandoned by the gods
after his men slew the sun god's sacred cattle,
who still proves himself worthy of song and story.

Sing, O Muse, of him in his glory. How after ten
long years at Troy trying to storm the many
towered city of Ilium, the gods
denied Odysseus return passage
home to his loving wife while other
comarades were led to safe haven where
they sleep free from the horror of war and
the sea. Tell me how the Nymph Calypso,
yearning for his love, trapped him by magic
in her caves, making him her lord and spouse.





[Odysseus Lands at Beach of Hades
 by Theodoor van Thulden,
17th century Dutch artist]









Sing, Muse, why Poseidon, the god of the sea --
despite destiny -- blocks his passage home.
Explain why Poseidon spurned Zeus's council
determining Odysseus's fate and
sped to Ethiopia at the end
of the earth, feasting his festival
while the other gods obeyed the summons
of mighty Zeus.


[R. L. Eickhoff's Translation]