The Divine Comedy. Dante AlighieriЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CANTO I

      IN the midway of this our mortal life,

      I found me in a gloomy wood, astray

      Gone from the path direct: and e'en to tell

      It were no easy task, how savage wild

      That forest, how robust and rough its growth,

      Which to remember only, my dismay

      Renews, in bitterness not far from death.

      Yet to discourse of what there good befell,

      All else will I relate discover'd there.

      How first I enter'd it I scarce can say,

      Such sleepy dullness in that instant weigh'd

      My senses down, when the true path I left,

      But when a mountain's foot I reach'd, where clos'd

      The valley, that had pierc'd my heart with dread,

      I look'd aloft, and saw his shoulders broad

      Already vested with that planet's beam,

      Who leads all wanderers safe through every way.

      Then was a little respite to the fear,

      That in my heart's recesses deep had lain,

      All of that night, so pitifully pass'd:

      And as a man, with difficult short breath,

      Forespent with toiling, 'scap'd from sea to shore,

      Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands

      At gaze; e'en so my spirit, that yet fail'd

      Struggling with terror, turn'd to view the straits,

      That none hath pass'd and liv'd. My weary frame

      After short pause recomforted, again

      I