Passages from The Divine Comedy

The moment a poet admits that language has finally run out.

Whereat to turn mine eyes on BeatriceMy seeing nothing and my love constrained me.If what has hitherto been said of herWere all concluded in a single praise,Scant would it be to serve the present turn.Not only does the beauty I beheldTranscend ourselves, but truly I believeIts Maker only may enjoy it all.Vanquished do I confess me by this passageMore than by problem of his theme was everO’ercome the comic or the tragic poet;For as the sun the sight that trembles most,Even so the memory of that sweet smileMy mind depriveth of its very self.

The moment a teacher steps back and tells you to choose for yourself.

When underneath us was the stairway allRun o’er, and we were on the highest step,Virgilius fastened upon me his eyes,And said: “The temporal fire and the eternal,Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art comeWhere of myself no farther I discern.By intellect and art I here have brought thee;Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth;Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.Behold the sun, that shines upon thy forehead;Behold the grass, the flowerets, and the shrubsWhich of itself alone this land produces.

What it is to meet a lost friend and close your arms on air.

One from among them saw I coming forward,As to embrace me, with such great affection,That it incited me to do the like.O empty shadows, save in aspect only!Three times behind it did I clasp my hands,As oft returned with them to my own breast!I think with wonder I depicted me;Whereat the shadow smiled and backward drew;

A medieval poet calls human beings caterpillars, and means it as hope.

O ye proud Christians! wretched, weary ones!Who, in the vision of the mind infirm,Confidence have in your backsliding steps,Do ye not comprehend that we are worms,Born to bring forth the angelic butterflyThat flieth unto judgment without screen?Why floats aloft your spirit high in air?Like are ye unto insects undeveloped,Even as the worm in whom formation fails!

The heaviest people in hell are the ones dressed in gold.

A painted people there below we found,Who went about with footsteps very slow,Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.They had on mantles with the hoods low downBefore their eyes, and fashioned of the cutThat in Cologne they for the monks are made.Without, they gilded are so that it dazzles;But inwardly all leaden and so heavyThat Frederick used to put them on of straw.O everlastingly fatiguing mantle!

What freedom is worth dying for, asked of a man who did.

Now may it please thee to vouchsafe his coming;He seeketh Liberty, which is so dear,As knoweth he who life for her refuses.Thou know’st it; since, for her, to thee not bitterWas death in Utica, where thou didst leaveThe vesture, that will shine so, the great day.

What desire looks like when it becomes a weather system.

I came into a place mute of all light,Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,If by opposing winds ’tis combated.The infernal hurricane that never restsHurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.When they arrive before the precipice,There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,There they blaspheme the puissance divine.I understood that unto such a tormentThe carnal malefactors were condemned,Who reason subjugate to appetite.

Every creature is a ship on a sea, carried toward its port.

In the order that I speak of are inclinedAll natures, by their destinies diverse,More or less near unto their origin;Hence they move onward unto ports diverseO’er the great sea of being; and each oneWith instinct given it which bears it on.This bears away the fire towards the moon;This is in mortal hearts the motive power;This binds together and unites the earth.Nor only the created things that areWithout intelligence this bow shoots forth,But those that have both intellect and love.

When a shape in the fog turns out to be enormous.

As, when the fog is vanishing away,Little by little doth the sight refigureWhate’er the mist that crowds the air conceals,So, piercing through the dense and darksome air,More and more near approaching tow’rd the verge,My error fled, and fear came over me;Because as on its circular parapetsMontereggione crowns itself with towers,E’en thus the margin which surrounds the wellWith one half of their bodies turretedThe horrible giants, whom Jove menacesE’en now from out the heavens when he thunders.

A cloak time cuts shorter every year: what ancestry is actually worth.

O thou our poor nobility of blood,If thou dost make the people glory in theeDown here where our affection languishes,A marvellous thing it ne’er will be to me;For there where appetite is not perverted,I say in Heaven, of thee I made a boast!Truly thou art a cloak that quickly shortens,So that unless we piece thee day by dayTime goeth round about thee with his shears!