Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vitami ritrovai per una selva oscuraché la diritta via era smarrita.Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa duraesta selva selvaggia e aspra e forteche 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.Io…
Death, always cruel, Pity’s foe in chief,Mother who brought forth grief,Merciless judgment and without appeal!Since thou alone hast made my heart to feelThis sadness and unweal,My tongue upbraideth thee without relief.And now (for I must rid thy name of ruth)Behoves me speak the truthTouching thy cruelty and wickedness:Not that they be not known; but ne’erthelessI…
And saw Love coming towards me fair and fain(That I scarce knew him for his joyful cheer),Saying, ‘Be now indeed my worshipper!’And in his speech he laughed and laughed again.Then, while it was his pleasure to remain,I chanced to look the way he had drawn near,And saw the Ladies Joan and BeatriceApproach me, this the…
that sailed by will alone, wherever seemeddesirable to go, beneath all skies.I’d have our vessel proof to chance and gale,and well supplied for pleasant times at sea:we’d grow into a merry company —good food and reveling would be the rule.And Guido, we’d try beaming up the dames!We’d take the ladies Vanna, Bess, and herwhom I…
Through Love: then pity makes my voice to pineSaying, ‘Is any else thus, anywhere?’Love smileth me, whose strength is ill to bear;So that of all my life is left no sighExcept one thought; and that, because ’tis thine,Leaves not the body but abideth there.And then if I, whom other aid forsook,Would aid myself, and innocent…
In one part more and in another less.Within that heaven which most his light receivesWas I, and things beheld which to repeatNor knows, nor can, who from above descends;Because in drawing near to its desireOur intellect ingulphs itself so far,That after it the memory cannot go.Truly whatever of the holy realmI had the power to…
On the first pageThat is the chapter whenI first met youAppear the words . . .Here begins a new life
Eager to listen, have been followingBehind my ship, that singing sails along,Turn back to look again upon your shores;Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure,In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.The sea I sail has never yet been passed;Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.Ye other…
They that go with her humbly should combineTo thank their God for such peculiar grace.So perfect is the beauty of her faceThat is begets in no wise any sighOf envy, but draws round her a clear lineOf love, and blessed faith, and gentleness.Merely the sight of her makes all things bow:Not she herself alone is…
Each, of itself, would be such life in deathAs rational soul bereft of reasoning.‘Tis Nature makes them when she loves: a kingLove is, whose palace where he sojournethIs call’d the Heart; there draws he quiet breathAt first, with brief or longer slumbering.Then beauty seen in virtuous womankindWill make the eyes desire, and through the heartSend…
