Clive James Divine Comedy translation:
Inferno 26.
REJOICE, O Florence, since thou art so great,
That over sea and land thou beatest thy wings,
And throughout Hell thy name is spread
abroad! Among the thieves five citizens of
thine
Like these I found, whence shame comes unto
me,
And thou thereby to no great honor risest.
But if when morn is near our dreams are
true, Feel shalt thou in a little time from now
What Prato, if none other, craves for thee.
And if it now were, it were not too soon; 10
Would that it were, seeing it needs must be,
For 't will aggrieve me more the more I age.
We went our way, and up along the stairs
The bourns had made us to descend before,
Remounted my Conductor and drew me. 15
And following the solitary path
Among the rocks and ridges of the crag,
The foot without the hand sped not at all.
Then sorrowed I, and sorrow now again,
When I direct my mind to what I saw, 20
And more my genius curb than I am
wont,
That it may run not unless virtue
guide it; So that if some good star, or
better thing,
Have given me good, I may myself not grudge
it. As many as the hind (who on the hill 25
Rests at the time when he who lights the world
His countenance keeps least concealed fromus,
While as the fly gives place unto the gnat)
Seeth the glow-worms down along the valley,
Perchance there where he ploughs and makes his
vintage; With fames as manifold resplendent all
31
Was the eighth Bolgia, as I grew aware
The Inferno, Canto 26: Dante meets Ulysses.
Florence, rejoice! For you are grown so great
Your wings beat proudly over land and sea,
And even Hell proclaims your rich estate,
Speaking your name abroad, your destiny.
Among your citizens, I’d just found five
To shame me that I shared their place of
birth.
Their skill at theft when they were still alive
Brought you no honour. What their schemes
were worth
You’ll find, if near the dawn our dreams
come true,
When Prato rises up against your greed,
A craving felt by other places too:
The sooner done the better, and indeed
Done years ago it had been overdue—
It must be done, or it will weigh the more
On me as I grow older.
We moved, then,
And on the stairs the rocks had made before
For our descent, my Leader climbed again
And drew me up. We went the winding way
Among the rocks and splinters, and the foot
Made no advance without the hand in play.
I grieved then and I grieve now when I put
My mind to what I saw, and I rein in
My powers more than usual, lest they run
Where virtue guides them not, and I begin
To curse the gift my lucky star, or one
Yet higher, gave me.
Count the fireflies
The peasant sees when he rests on the hill—
In the season when the one who lights our
eyes,
And all the world, least hides its face, and
will
Soon sink to give the fly’s place to the
gnat—
The lights he sees along the valley floor
Might well be glowing in the vineyards that
As soon as I was where the depth appeared.
And such as he who with the bears avenged
him Beheld Elijah's chariot at departing, 35
What time the steeds to heaven erect
uprose, For with his eye he could not follow
it
So as to see aught else than fame alone,
Even as a little cloud ascending upward,
Thus each along the gorge of the intrenchment
40
Was moving; for not one reveals the theft,
And every fame a sinner steals away.
I stood upon the bridge uprisen to
see, So that, if I had seized not on a
rock,
Down had I fallen without being pushed.
45 And the Leader, who beheld me so
attent, Exclaimed: "Within the fires the
spirits are;
Each swathes himself with that wherewith he
burns." "My Master," I replied, "by hearing
thee I am more sure; but I surmised already 50
It might be so, and already wished to ask
thee Who is within that fire, which comes so
cleft At top, it seems uprising from the pyre
Where was Eteocles with his brother placed."
He answered me: "Within there are tormented
55 Ulysses and Diomed, and thus together
They unto vengeance run as unto wrath.
And there within their flame do they
lament
The ambush of the horse, which made the
door Whence issued forth the Romans' gentle
seed; 60
Therein is wept the craft, for which being
dead Deidamia still deplores Achilles,
He gathered grapes in, or the fields that wore
Him out from tilling them that day. The same
Number of lights were strewn in the eighth
ditch
Gleaming, so I could see them when I came
Within sight of its base. The night looked
rich:
A lake of lights, and each light was a flame.
Elias, whom the bears avenged when he
Was baited by small boys, once watched it
flare—
Elijah’s chariot, majestically
Drawn skyward when its horses pawed the
air.
No matter how he fixed it with his eyes
He made out nothing but the flame alone:
He saw a little shining cloud arise,
The glow surrounding where the fire had
flown.
Just so each flame here moves along the
throat
Of this ditch and none shows it is a theft
Of some vile sinner’s form we may not note.
I stood there on the bridge above the cleft
Grasping a rock as I stretched out to see.
For sure I would have fallen had I not
Held on—and then my Leader, seeing me
Look so intent, said “All these flames are
what
False counsellors must wear and be burned
by.”
“Master,” I said, “I’m sure now, having heard
You speak, of what I guessed. Already I
Wanted to ask, before you said a word,
About that fire, divided at its peak
As if it were the pyre of those two sons
Of Oedipus who killed each other. Speak
Of who is in there. Are there two? Which
ones?”
He answered. “Two are punished there
inside.
Ulysses is in there, and Diomed.
In vengeance now together they are tied
As once in wrath. They groan for pain and
 And pain for the Palladium there is borne."
"If they within those sparks possess the power
To speak," I said, "thee, Master, much I pray,
65
And re-pray, that the prayer be worth a
thousand,
That thou make no denial of awaiting
Until the hornëd flame shall hither come;
Thou seest that with desire I lean towards
it." And he to me: "Worthy is thy entreaty 70
Of much applause, and therefore I accept it;
But take heed that thy tongue restrain itself.
Leave me to speak, because I have conceived
That which thou wishest; for they might
disdain
Perchance, since they were Greeks, discourse
of
thine." When now the flame had come unto that
point,
76 Where to my Leader it seemed time and
place,
After this fashion did I hear him
speak: "O ye, who are twofold within
one re,
If I deserved of you, while I was living,
80 If I deserved of you or much or little
When in the world I wrote the lofty verses,
Do not move on, but one of you declare
Whither, being lost, he went away to die."
Then of the antique flame the greater horn, 85
Murmuring, began to wave itself about
Even as a ame doth which the wind
fatigues. There afterward, the summit to and
fro Moving as if it were the tongue that
spake,
It uttered forth a voice, and said: "When I
90 From Circe had departed, who
concealed me More than a year there near
unto Gaëta,
Or ever yet Æneas named it so,
Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence
For my old father, nor the due affection
95 Which joyous should have made
Penelope, Could overcome within me the
dread
Within the flame, and for the clever plan
Of the gift horse that opened up the gate
For the noble seed from which great Rome
began
To first burst forth, and in that fiery state
They rue their craft by which Deidamia
Gave them Achilles, and they feel the heat
For what they stole from Troy and took so
far
The stricken city sought its own defeat:
Pallas Athena’s image. There they are.
The thieves of the Palladium. In there.”
“If they can speak,” I told my Guide, “I pray,
If they can speak inside these lights they
share,
This light, I pray that you might let me
stay—
May it avail a thousand times, this prayer—
Until that flame with double horn comes
near.
You see I bend towards it with desire.”
And he: “Your prayer deserves praise, never
fear:
And therefore I will grant what you require.
But guard your tongue. I’ll be the one to
speak.
I understood what you would like to know,
And they might scorn your language: they
were Greek.”
After the flame had reached the time and
place
My Guide thought fitting, thus he spoke to it:
“You that are two within one fiery space,
If while I lived you ever thought me fit
To be respected when I wrote of you—
If I was worthy of you, whether much
Or little, when I did my best to do
You justice with my heightened lines—let
such
Devotion from me sway you to stand still
While one of you tells where, when he was
lost,
He went to die.” Hearing my Master’s will,
desire
I had to be experienced of the world,
And of the vice and virtue of mankind;
But I put forth on the high open sea 100
With one sole ship, and that small company
By which I never had deserted been.
Both of the shores I saw as far as
Spain, Far as Morocco, and the isle of
Sardes,
And the others which that sea bathes
roundabout.
105 I and my company were old and slow
When at that narrow passage we arrived
Where Hercules his landmarks set as signals,
That man no farther onward should
adventure.
On the right hand behind me left I Seville,
And on the other already had left Ceuta.
'O brothers, who amid a hundred
thousand Perils,' I said, 'have come unto
the West,
To this so inconsiderable vigil
Which is remaining of your senses still, 115
Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge,
Following the sun, of the unpeopled world.
Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.'
120 So eager did I render my companions,
With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,
That then I hardly could have held them
The larger of the flaming horns was tossed
And murmured as if by the wind misled.
Its point waved to and fro as if it were
A tongue that spoke, a voice thrown out, that
said:
“When I left Circe, having lived with her
More than a year in Italy, before
Aeneas got there, no love for my son,
No duty to my father, and what’s more
No love I owed Penelope—the one
Who would have been most glad—could
overcome
In me the passion that I had, to gain
Experience of the world, and know the sum
Of virtue, pleasure, wisdom, vice and pain.
Once more I set out on the open sea,
With just one ship, crewed by my loyal men,
The stalwart who had not deserted me.
As far as Spain I saw both shores, and then
Morocco, and Sardinia, and those
Numberless islands that the sea surrounds.
But men grow old and slow as the time goes,
And so did we, and so we reached the
bounds
Of voyaging, that narrow outlet marked
By Hercules so nobody should sail
Beyond, and anybody thus embarked
Knows, by those pillars, he is sure to fail.
Seville on my right hand, I left behind
Ceuta on my left. ‘Brothers,’ I said,
‘Dangers uncounted and of every kind
Fit to make other sailors die of dread
You have come through, and you have
reached the west,
And now our senses fade, their vigil ends:
They ask to do the easy thing, and rest.
But in the brief time that remains, my
friends,
Would you deny yourselves experience
Of that unpeopled world we’ll find if we
Follow the sun out into the immense
Unknown? Remember now your pedigree.
You were not born to live as brutes. Virtue
And knowledge are your guiding lights.’ I
back. And having turned our stern unto the
morning,
We of the oars made wings for our mad ight,
125 Evermore gaining on the larboard side.
Already all the stars of the other pole
The night beheld, and ours so very
low It did not rise above the ocean
foor.
Five times rekindled and as many quenched
130 Had been the splendor underneath
the
moon, Since we had entered into the deep
pass,
When there appeared to us a mountain,
dim From distance, and it seemed to me so
high As I had never any one beheld. 135
Joyful were we, and soon it turned to
weeping; For out of the new land a
whirlwind rose,
And smote upon the fore part of the ship.
Three times it made it whirl with all the
waters, At the fourth time it made the
stern
uplift, 140
And the prow downward go, as pleased
Another, Until the sea above us closed
again."
gave
With these words such an impulse to my
crew
For enterprise that I could not, to save
My life, have held them back. We flew
On oars like wings, our stern, in that mad
flight,
Towards the morning. Always left we bore.
Stars of the other pole we saw at night,
And ours so low that from the ocean floor
It never once arose. Five times the light
Had kindled and then quenched beneath the
moon
Since first we ventured on our lofty task,
When we could see a mountain, though not
soon
Could see it clearly: distance was a mask
That made it dim. But it was high, for sure:
Higher than anything I’d ever seen,
It climbed into the sky. Who could be more
Elated than we were, had not we been
Plunged straight away into deep sorrow, for
The new land gave rise to a storm that struck
Our ship’s forepart. Three times the waters
led
Us in a circle. Fourth time, out of luck.
Stern high, bow low, we went in. Overhead
Somebody closed the sea, and we were
dead.”